Civilizations Collide

by Charx

Chapter 2

"What was that, darling?" Rarity turned towards Twilight.

"Look! Right there!" Twilight pointed her hoof towards the golden record.

All seven gathered there gazed at it, silently contemplating what it could mean, and why it was there. Until Pinkie broke the silence with a huge gasp.

"Alien music! What do you think it is?? Dubstep?? Rock?? Polka?? Punk opera?! OMG, Vinyl would love this!!" Pinkie dashed off, and about five seconds later returned with a visibly shaken Vinyl Scratch.

"Lookie! It's a record! From an alien spaceship!" she exclaimed happily.

"Um, Vinyl, you have some really advanced sound equipment right?" said Twilight, much more subdued than Pinkie, "Could we play the record on it?"

Vinyl nodded her head and smiled, then motioned for them to follow her. She walked slowly, head nodding slowly and headphones leaking snippets of the music she was playing. Twilight and others followed, after Twilight carefully detached the record from the craft.

She studied it as they walked. She could feel every engraving with her magic, and she was fairly sure she knew what they meant. On the record were several pictures, a few of which gave instructions on how to play the recording, and how to...well....do something else with it. It appeared to be some method of extrapolating images from the record. All these were binary code, clever, as any sufficiently advanced race would have knowledge of binary. This made Twilight sure the it was alien, except for one perplexing detail....

"I think this is in Equish, girls," announced Twilight.

"Um, not criticizing ya or anything, but how in the hay is a alien recordin' in our language?" Applejack, and the others, looked at Twilight, confused by her announcement.

"Look, see? This is in Equish." Twilight pointed to some lettering on the front of the record.

It was indeed in Equish. It was labaled The Sounds Of Earth, though what that meant was a mystery to the ponies. Diamond Dogs or Earth ponies, perhaps?

"Whoa whoa whoa, hey, if that's in Equish why's there all these weird pictures of the record on the record? Doesn't make much sense, Twilight," said Rainbow Dash.

"They may not have thought that whoever found this would speak it," Rarity stepped up and asked, "Do you think it's recorded in Equish, too?"

"Yes, I do, and Vinyl's advanced sound system will allow to analyze it in-depth," answered Twilight.

They finally arrived at Vinyl's house. She lived with her sister Octavia, and they had the house split right down the middle, one side ultra-mod and the other traditional. Vinyl's best equipment was in the basement, however, so that was where they ended up.

Twilight carefully placed the record on the turntable and lowered the needle onto it. She deduced from the cover that the correct speed was about 3.6 seconds for one rotation, and she adjusted the table accordingly. Just when she was about to start it, she paused and gasped.

"I forgot my note-taking folder!!! And I didn't send a letter to Celestia!! SPIKE!!" she shouted.

"I'm right here, Twi," said Spike, annoyed by her overreacting, "Here's the parchment, and quill."

Twilight calmed down and started the record. A very low quality recording was heard.

All the ponies (and one dragon) shushed each other softly as they listened to the first words (in Equish, just as Twilight thought). It was utterly silent as the last words of the first message faded away, ' it is with humility and hope that we take this step'.

Twilight stopped the recording. "That was-" she smiled and wiped the beginnings of a tear from her eye, "that was truly inspiring. Just...beautiful. They must be an amazing race."

"Yeah, these, um, 'humans of Earth' abound pretty cool," said Rainbow, "Seeking only peace and friendship, yeah, that's my kinda aliens."

"They must love parties if they love friendship!! Hope one of them comes here!" said Pinkie excitedly.

"There's probably more information on here about that, "answered Twilight, "I mean, how did they travel using a wormhole? There must be an explanation."

XXXX

Back on Earth, the atmosphere of the space center had changed dramatically. The last signal the craft sent was a message of distress. Apparently the wormhole had disrupted the nuclear power core, causing a severe crash. There were several images captured, however, showing a very colorful and seemingly organic landscape. But this left the scientists more confused than proud.

Only three images were visible. One showed a blue sky, another a forest. Both of these were confusing enough, but the last one.....well, the scientists were stumped.

"Um, guys?" One of them finally broke the silence, "Are those........ponies??"

Comments

[Lazy_]

6299210
Redshirt has a point. Creating a black hole from smashing two hadrons together isn't reliable. And even if it does form it would evaporate pretty much instantaneously due to having such a minuscule mass. Your probe would have to be traveling at a huge speed to avoid being cut in half by your wormhole closing up with the probe half-way through. And even then, wormhole's might to be formed (Theoretically) by electrical and/ or spinning black holes.

[Mosqueefo]

It seems a bit....... fast...
Or it might just be me, eh!

[Dipti]

It seems a bit fast paced A few chapters could even bee done just concerning the content of the record.

[PrinceJonathan]

Apparently the wormhole had disrupted the nuclear power core

That thing was nuclear powered? Great, the crash probably ruptured something important and now the craft is leaking radiation. Humanity extends the hand of friendship to an alien species, and it gives them all cancer. Yup that about sums up the human race.

[Walabio]

6304732

You need not worry about the ponies developing cancer. Cancer would require years to devolop, but the intense radiation will kill the ponies in hours.

[Raul]

Yup, Im not too fond of it, keep trying.

[A random person]

the link to the picture is broken