Spacebound Equestria

by TheMajorTechie

Chapter 10: Time travel and Black Holes

Twilight sat alone in the break room, as usual. She added yet another entry to the theoretical physics section of her notebook, stopping only occasionally for a coffee break. Eventually, her one and only friend, Moondancer, entered the room, holding a box of donuts.

"Hey, Twi," she said, tossing the box onto the table. "I heard that you were working on a time-travel spell. I could help, if you want..."

Twilight nodded. "Yes, please." She took a donut from the box, and began munching on it as she explained what she had written so far. "You see," she stated, "Theoretically, if you somehow find a way to travel faster than light itself, that should mean that you end up traveling faster than time itself can travel, since nothing in the universe travels faster than light."

Moondancer's eyes scanned the paper. "Yes, but what about teleportation?" She asked, "wouldn't that mean that we traveled faster than light?"

Twilight paused for a moment, and then proceeded to erase half the page, up to the explanation about time-travel itself. "You're right," she said. "I'm gonna go to the library to find some textbooks. You coming, Moondancer?"

Moondancer nodded, and the two left the room.

~~~o~~~

~~~{Lecture Room, approx. three hours later}~~~

Celestia listened closely on Twilight's lecture on time travel by the means of hyperspeeds. She had heard of time travel many times before, especially when Starswirl was around. But this... what Twilight was talking about could actually work, and by work, it wasn't going to simply be a "Zap! Oh, lookie here," kind of time travel, but an actual, physical form of time travel that may be able to work even without magic.

Celestia raised a hoof. "Twilight, how do you think we would be able to travel faster than light? I know that teleportation technically works that way, but it doesn't have the same effect. How would we be able to pull this off?"

"Simple. We just have to steer into an area of space where classical physics don't apply."

"Aaaaaaaand how are we supposed to do that?"

Twilight opened her mouth to answer the Princess's question, but paused. She then hesitantly said, "The only place where the laws of physics don' apply is..."

Celestia leaned forwards, eager to listen.

"inside the event horizon of a black hole."

~~~o~~~

As various scientists and mages left, Celestia silently glided towards the lavender unicorn. "You kno-"

"GAH!"

"Sorry, Twilight, but how would we be assured that death isn't imminent if we attempt to travel through time by the means of a black hole?"

Twilight thought it through. "I uh... I actually don't really know, I mean, the simulations I've run show that it's possible, but there's still only a very slim chance that we would make it out alive, let alone in one piece."

Author's Note:

I'm beginning to run out of ideas here...