• Published 12th Jan 2016
  • 974 Views, 29 Comments

Clockwise Aspects - Kaffeina



Dimensional invasion. Not normally something to be expected, but this species saw it coming. They were warned, however, it was too late. Now, after a malfunction of the invading tech, one of them finds themself in a land of strange speaking ponies.

  • ...
5
 29
 974

Chapter 2

My heart had twinged, these poor children. On my world, if a child’s parents died, abandoned them, or anything, they were taken in by the community. I myself had been brought up by my entire street and had a family, no matter where I went.

I did notice, however, that despite the looks Cocoon had received from the adults, he truly cared for the others, so I took a deep breath and headed downstairs. This may be an unfamiliar world, but I had no reason to doubt their hearts.

And that led to where I am now, a library of sorts. I began digging through their books working on figuring out the extent of their knowledge. So far, they had something they called magic which seemed to work like an inherent super energy, kind of like electricity on catnip.

All I could do was examine the diagrams, and get some new limited knowledge. It didn’t help that the librarian kept suggested children’s books that were clearly way too far below the average level on my world. I had finally found their science section, and… well, they were more backwards in that department than those deistical scientists on my world. ‘Pray and they will be healed.’ It was downright idiotic, but these horses at least had more logical understanding than that.

Health problems were allegedly caused by chaos in your own personal magic field, and it seemed that they had proven it to a degree. However, I had no reason to believe that these diseases weren’t caused by tiny parasites that actually influenced both one’s physical and magical bodies. It would make sense, considering that’s how it worked in my world, minus magic.

I tried telling the librarian I needed more information, but…

“I need higher level books,” I told her, waving the book around with my leg. A hard feat, since I just kind of held it slightly on it. The librarian looked at me like I was crazy, before I sighed and began a charades game of a sort.

“This,” I set the book on the floor, “is not,” I shook my head, “high,” I held up a foreleg, “enough.” I shook my head again. The librarian nodded and returned, AGAIN, with children’s books. I groaned and facepawed. I pointed my paw at the book she held and shook my head rapidly.

We repeated this a couple of times before I gave up, and began looking through the shelves. The librarian followed me, crazy queen, as I dug through each shelf. Agriculture… Spell-making…I grabbed the biggest and thickest of each. Astronomy… Meteorology… Biology… Physics… Psychology…

You name it, I likely grabbed the books. Even diagrams would work. I probably sat there for hours looking at the information in front of me. The more I dug, the more backwards these ponies seemed compared to what my species had accomplished. They seemed to at least accept the existence of other planets, but their comprehension of the universe was downright Stone Age.

They thought two horned-winged versions of themselves raised the sun and moon. I couldn’t help but crack up at that one. Even if they did move them, it didn’t work with their basic physics and astronomy. First, the star patterns had changed too gradually and logically for it to simply be the whim of the lunar one. Second, even the incident where both celestial bodies appeared in the sky could fit. If the lunar one actually moved the moon, I could understand.

But for one of them to move a star itself? That seemed idiotically powerful. My personal theory was that the planet was tidally locked, meaning she rotated the planet. That would fit with their past, after all. From their history, I had gathered that most of their kind had lived in an eternal twilight before they began rotating the planet. It would also fit, allowing these ice dog things to adapt to a colder environment, thus their natural magic would be attributed to colder habitats.

Theories are nice, and I would need the equipment to prove them later, but right now I needed to find a way to make money quickly so that I could help repair the house and make a home. If I was going to live there, as I was of course going to, then I needed to contribute.

The question was, what to make and how fast it could make money… I also needed to know what inventions they currently had. Basically, more research. It’s a little more knowledge, but most of their scientific knowledge wasn’t worth remembering, aside from little tidbits.

Several hours of research later, and, like I suspected, they needed a powered form of carriage or chariot. One capable of flight would likely be welcomed more openly. From what I could tell, they had basic combustion down, alongside motion, but properly powering it was impossible without magic.

Impossible, I smirked, we’ll have to see about that.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Magic capacitors here… The internal combustion engine needs to be in the middle so as to properly balance it…” I muttered, drawing by lantern light. It had been about a day, and I already had a rough outline of the motorized flying chariot. Of course, as this was a prototype, I couldn’t amp up the speed yet. I’d say… 2 kilopaws a second? (Ten kilopaws- One mile).

Most of the children, as well as Cocoon, thought my drawings were utter gibberish. Too bad, they could’ve participated in quite the technological advancement. Too bad, so sad.

Right, sorry… Got a bit off topic, didn’t I? Anyways, the design wasn’t too complex… At least, for me. These horses were another story, I mean, look at their beliefs! As far as building, just the prototype itself would take ages to build, on my world. These horses had magic, so I guesstimated some extra speed.

Once I was done, I’d have to go and patent this. The idea frustrated me. Who would believe a child created this? I doubt they would. ‘Ok little one, that’s a pretty drawing. Where are your parents?’ That’d be what I would end up hearing.

It’s sad really, I mean, children could be quite intelligent. Once, a children had come up with a formula for rocket fuel that could take a ship to the moons, three times, on just one tank of… 20 liters. The other scientists scoffed, but when I took the kid to patent the formula and we successfully reached both moons, though one of them is actually our sister planet, and came back, they were a little… remorseful.

Lesson learned, never underestimate the brain of a child. Of course, here, it seemed children were normally focused on fun, their rear-leg marking, and magic. I was certainly the odd one out.

Back to the topic at hand, the airship would be powered by coal and steam. Of course, magic would play a part in holding her up, or so I hoped, so that more power could be put into the engines and add speed. I couldn’t make planes, they didn’t really have knowledge of their elements and magic energy didn’t quite work in that area so well.

The only thing left was the patent office, which would be SUCH a pain. Maybe I could find someone with enough knowledge and old enough to help me get it patented. Not only that, but I doubted my name would translate. They didn’t exactly relate to our language much.

So, that’s what I had to do next. Thankfully, it was daylight so I could make my way to the patent office and find SOMEONE to help me. It’d have to be a scientist, that’s for sure. I mean, scientists and inventors were crazy so I doubted one wouldn’t help me, but a normal horse would completely tail me off.

Of course, maybe that nice brown fellow at the table in front of the cafe with the strange hourglass marking might help me. He seemed odd enough, glancing down at a watch and doodling in a notebook of some sort. A lot of it seemed to do with clocks and other gear-type things from this angle, right beside him.

The horse looked at me and I looked at him. He blinked. I blinked. He tilted his head, I tilted my head. He neighed something, probably a greeting. I shook my head. “Not understand,” I said in their language. Two words Cocoon had taught me. They were very handy.

He neighed again, motioning towards his notebook, and I responded with another shake of my head. “Not understand,” I pointed at him and then at my muzzle. Sheesh, my days seem to be getting longer and longer…

Author's Note:

So, yeah. This may be subject to changes later.

Comments ( 12 )

Good job on the chapter! Felt way better pace than the last one.

So far I like the story, though you could probably flesh it out a little. As in, the story seems to go by pretty fast with little descriptions of what's going on. To be honest, I would like to see this story updated more often, though it's understandable why it doesn't update often.

7/10 Keep going.

So if I had to guess, it seems like your pony will be playing a big part among the researchers mentioned in the main story, though since we haven't heard of him in that story, he either hasn't got in with the scientists yet, someone else is taking the credit for his inventions, or your story is non canon to the other.

I'm surprised that the MC can read books but not speak the language. Or have the books so many illustrations which explain things unambiguously?

6854051
She's a scientist, among other things. She can pick out words and using the diagrams, as there are usually a few in some books, decipher their context. There are a fair number of diagrams and an even larger amount of books.

6852187 I am very sure the main-story hasn't gotten to this part yet. But that will be fixed with the time-skips, I guess

love the story so far cant wait for more.

I take it that, due to the large amount of time skips in astral aegis, it has been hard for this story to progress smoothly and fit with the new chapters. Since the the new sequel is out, cosmic rifts, I hope you can work out something with silvak and keep this story going! :pinkiehappy:

In spite of the tags firmly cementing the fact that I will never read this during my current lifetime, I had to come over and say that the art, despite it's simplicity, is simply phenomenal, it is so simple, yet it conveys so much.

10165656
Never fear, this probably won't be continued

10171432

probably

I'll believe that only if you never continue this.

Login or register to comment