Chapter 3
The Grand Chk'rain Empire had first started spreading beyond its home world of Vi'Macs Prime 3000 years ago. It was then that Emperor Lothzar the Third, after finally uniting the planet, began the Empire's expansion into the stars. Since then, an unbroken line of his descendants had diligently worked on extending the Empire's borders. Presently the Empire consisted of 35 major worlds, numerous space stations and smaller colony planets, 11 conquered systems, thousands of uninhabited systems, and a vast fleet. The bulk of these planets were clustered near the outer portion of the core of the galaxy, but in the last 2000 years the Empire had been spreading towards the outer edge of the galaxy. This spread was a relatively slow process due to the enormous distance between stars.
With the invention of the phase drive, it seemed that the Empire had finally found a way to overcome the universal speed limit, ships could finally exceed the speed of light. The phase drive could take a ship and bring it out of phase with the rest of the universe. The higher the phase gradient the faster the ship could go. As an added bonus, ships that were out of phase didn't interact with the physical universe in the same manner as an unphased vessel. This was good because shields didn't work in phase space and a collision with a solid object at hyper-relativistic speeds would not end well for any vessel. There were however, 3 major limitations to phase drives.
The first limitation was at the highest possible phase gradient maximum velocity was still limited to around 10-15 times the speed of light. Even at this enormous speed, it would take thousands of years to cross the entire galaxy. The second limitation was that the phase drive became less and less efficient the closer it was to a large gravity wells. The closer a ship traveled to a star, the lower the maximum speed of the drive until it no longer worked at all. Within one light year, travel was limited to about 2x that of the speed of light till it stopped working entirely at about half a light year. The flip side to this was when the Empire's ships reached the edge of the galaxy, the phase drive was theorized to work incredibly well in the nearly empty void between galaxies.
The final limitation however, was the worst. The phase drive worked by forming an energy field around the ship. Everything in field was brought partially out of phased with reality, which is what allowed the ship to travel faster than light, this field was deadly to all known forms of life. No method had yet been discovered that could shield life forms from the phase space. In theory it would be possible to block the harmful effects of the field while still allowing FTL travel with shields, but shields didn't work in phase space. Any living beings subject to a phase field would generally die within hours.
It seemed that interstellar travel would have to rely on slower than light colony ships, while automatic exploratory vessels could be sent out using the phase drive to scout ahead of the colony ships. This was how the first settlement of the empire outside of its home solar system was established. Communication between the home world and it's first colony was slow, relying on phase ships to relay messages back and forth. Finally, a solution was discovered.
Transdimensional node travel was an improvement over phase drives in many ways. First, travel was nearly instant between any two points. Secondly, it had no effect on organics. Living beings could travel from one system to another in a matter of minutes. The system was much less sensitive to gravity wells. It's major weakness was that it required a node to exist in the starting location and the destination. These nodes were created by what was commonly known as a Trans-D Gate or just gates. It was then decided to seek out new systems to expand the Empire into.
Massive automated gates were built, equipped with Phase Drives and sent out into the galaxy. They were programmed to look for signs of life, seeking out transmissions such as radio waves that tended to leak out into space wherever technological civilizations existed. The gate would then enter the system and send back a report of its findings. Based on those findings, The Empire would then determine the appropriate course of action.
There was one other limitation of node travel. The maximum distance between nodes was partially based on the size and number of gravity wells between any two nodes. As such, the node system zigzagged back and forth across through known space as more and more gate ships arrived at systems of interest and added new nodes to the network.
At the end of one of these chains of nodes a space station orbited the single gas giant in the system. While this system was devoid of any native life, this gas giant was an excellent fuel source. Unfortunately it was the only planet in the system, it didn't even have any moons. This presented a severe lack of raw materials for both construction and repair. A problem the local commander was struggling to come up with a solution for.
There was a knock at the commander's door. He shut off his computer display and pressed the button on his desk that opened the door.
"Commander Viettar, I'm sorry to intrude, but we've just received a report from a gateship. A new node will be coming online in approximately 60 hours in sector 2157.32. The gateship has detected radio transmissions and is already at the outer edge of the system," Subcommander Korthack said.
Commander Viettar diverted his full attention the moment he heard the word gateship. Stations as far out as this one generally had decades pass between new node activations. In fact, this particular system was at the end of a chain which hadn't had a single new node connected to it since it had gone active 75 years ago. A few gate ships had been sent in search of new worlds nearly five decades ago, but that was long before he had taken command of the station. Viettar hadn't even been in the service when those ships had been sent out.
The news that the gate had picked up radio transmissions made the announcement even more exciting. After nearly 2500 years of sending out gates, only 11 other races had been discovered. Ten of those had already been fully absorbed into the Empire, while the 11th, the Heliosians, had just been brought under Empire control five years earlier and was in the process of being integrated.
This was the first time in the Chk'rain history two different species had been discovered so close to each other. Average time between new races was in centuries.
"Do we have the initial report on the new species?" Viettar asked.
"Not yet sir, the gateship is still gathering information for the full report, all we know so far is that it has detected signs of civilization. "
"I will contact Central Command, and ask them to divert a contact vessel. Bring me the report from the gateship as soon as it is available."
"Yes sir" Korthack turned around and left the room. Commander Viettar got to work preparing the requisition forms needed to secure a contact vessel. He shuddered slightly, if there was one constant throughout his military career, it was paper work. Paper work never changed.
#####
The four princesses, Shining Armor and Spike continued to watch the object for some time. While it was clear that it was artificial, that's about all they could determine. It was time to figure out what to do next. Celestia stepped forward to address the rest of the ponies in the room.
"My sister and I have been around for a very long time, and we have seen many things. It is rare for us to encounter something new that we know nothing about, but in this case, and I think I speak for Luna as well, I am as shocked as any of you."
Luna nodded in agreement while Celestia continued.
"Our next steps are important ones. This ring, whatever it is, appears to be on course to that will take it extremely close to us. I doubt this is a coincidence. We should prepare for guests. Whoever it is that comes to visit us from distant stars, I want to be ready to greet them as ponies should, warmly and with friendship."
"Do you and Luna have a plan of action already?" Cadance asked.
"Celestia and I have some initial ideas, but I think we should spend the next few hours discussing ideas that anypony has. Like my sister said, this is new for all of us."
"Twilight, do you remember Arctic Skies?" Celestia asked.
"The professor from the Royal Academy? I think he taught astronomy, but he retired before I was old enough to take the class."
"Yes that's him. He's did retire, and then moved to Manehattan. I'm going to send Swift Wing to bring him back to Canterlot. He's the closest we have to an expert on space apart from Luna and while it was a work of fiction, he did write that book, Mare on the Moon, about the group of ponies that traveled to the moon on a rocket. I'd like to hear his ideas on space travel in the real world, if he has any."
"I read that book, his description of the lunar surface was surprisingly accurate," Luna said.
Twilight made a mental note to get a copy of the book and read it as soon as she could.
"Will you be informing Swift Wing of the ring?" Cadance asked.
"Yes, though I will ask him to keep it to himself for now. We will be making a public announcement after the object arrives, I want to see what it does first before I say anything. " Celestia said.
Luna opened the observatory door and invited Swift Wing into the gathering. The princesses brought him up to speed and quickly cast the DSIS so Swift Wing could take a look at the ring. Swing Wing looked extremely nervous by the time Celestia got to giving him his new orders.
"Swift Wing, you look troubled, are you alright?" Celestia asked.
"I uh um..." Swift Wing said with a stammer.
"It's alright, you can speak your mind," Celestia said.
"Is this a joke?"
Celestia laughed.
"No my little pony, it is not a joke. You will be leaving in the morning, the Crystal Express has already departed, so you will be boarding Engine 12, nonstop service Canterlot to Manehattan it leaves at 8:00."
Luna turned to Swift Wing.
"One more thing Swift Wing. Until we make a public announcement about this ring, you should not share your knowledge with anypony. My sister and I have decided to inform Arctic Skies, so that he will be prepared. The letter we will be giving you includes all the information we have thus far. It is for his eyes only, though it is magically sealed so that should not be a problem," she said in a serious tone.
"Yes ma'am, I understand."
Swift Wing was dismissed and he headed off to the Canterlot Garrison to get some much needed rest before his next journey. The rest of the ponies continued to discuss the plan of action to take when the ring arrived. Everypony had a different opinion on how to handle the situation, so progress was slow. Eventually Celestia called for a break, the planning would continue in the morning.
#####
Swift Wing gathered up his squad and informed them of their new orders.
"Ok listen up, we'll be boarding Engine 12. It departs in soon so let's hustle. We're headed to Manehattan on another escort mission."
"Another escort mission? Why are we running around babysitting civvies?" Rocky Road asked.
"Doesn't matter, when the Princesses say go, we go" Swift Wing replied.
"I don't know why you're complaining," Crystal Star said, after taking a sip of coffee. "If we were back in Vanhoover, we'd be doing our daily run right now. Instead we get to relax on a train for the next 2 days, then pick up a civvie, and spend another 2 days relaxing on a train again. It's like extra leave." She levitated the empty cup into the nearest trash.
The massive earth pony behind Crystal Star looked up.
"If I was on leave I wouldn't be lugging around hundreds of pounds of armor and gear," Stone Hide said.
Swift Wing glared at his squad.
"Alright, quit your complaining, it's time to board the train," he said.
The four ponies climbed onto the train, and shortly thereafter, the train rolled out of the station. The rest of his squad chatted amongst themselves, but Swift Wing wasn't really in the mood for talking so he looked out the window and watched the country side roll by as the train made its way east. Several hours later he realized somepony was calling his name.
"Equus to Swift Wing, are you there?" Rocky Road asked.
"Yes?"
"I've been calling your name for the late five minutes."
"Oh, sorry I was zoned out."
"Yeah, we noticed. You've been kind of out of it since you showed up at the garrison last night. What's going on?"
Swift Wing felt conflicted. He had been working with these ponies for years. He wanted to let them know what was going on, but he also understood why Celestia and Luna didn't want to make the information public yet.
"Look, I can't really get into that. I'm under orders to not discuss it."
"Was the order from the Princesses?" Crystal asked.
Swift Wing's surprised look gave the answer away.
"One of the local guards mentioned he saw Princess Celestia, Princess Twilight, Shining Armor and a white pegasus guard headed to Luna's observatory last night," she added.
"Ok, yes it was, I wasn't told the meeting itself was secret, but I can't talk to you about the contents, so just drop it."
"It's not changelings again is it? Rocky Road asked.
"Even if it was, I couldn't tell you."
"Can you at least tell us who we're picking up?" Stone Hide asked.
"Yeah, that's not a secret, a pony by the name of Arctic Skies."
"The stallion that wrote Mare on the Moon?" Crystal asked?
"What's that?" Rocky Road asked.
"It's a fiction novel about ponies who travel to the moon on a giant rocket," said Crystal. "I think he also taught astronomy at the Royal Academy, but it was before my time."
"Yes, that's him, but that's all the details I can share."
"Alright we'll drop it," Rocky Road said.
"We've got another day and a half to Manehattan so let's stop with the questions, I can't answer them anyway," Swift Wing said.
"Yes Sir!" the rest of his squad replied.
Swift Wing closed his eyes. It was going to be a long trip.
#####
Luna sighed, she had been awake since the initial detection of the ring in deep space. It was times like these she was glad she could get by with almost no sleep. One of the many benefits to being an immortal alicorn she thought. She could easily stay awake for weeks at a time and not feel any effect. There was a limit though, as Celestia had found out while Luna was imprisoned. 1000 years of managing the country and the solar system all by herself had left Celestia tired. True, her overall power had grown, but even the Princesses needed to recharge their batteries from time to time. However, when you ran a solar system by yourself, time for rest and relaxation were at a minimum.
The cleansing of the Nightmare had left Luna almost completely drained of magic. Even after being freed of the Nightmare, Celestia had to still carry on running the system alone. It wasn't until almost a year later, after Discord had been freed and re-imprisoned, that her magic had finally started to recover.
Meanwhile, Celestia was forced to expend even more power fighting off Discord's attempts to retake control of the system while Twilight and her friends were working on stopping him. By the time Discord had been imprisoned once more, Celestia had nearly been drained herself. Luna smiled grimly, it was no wonder her sister had such a problem with that changeling queen, Celestia had been running herself ragged for a millennium, she was virtually on the edge of magical collapse. Luna of course had missed the entire affair, having placed herself in a magically induced hibernation in attempt to hasten her recovery. Had she been awake and recovered, she would have squashed Chrysalis like the bug she so resembled.
She was ready now though, nearly 2 years after being freed from the Nightmare, she was almost back to full strength. Celestia was also doing much better, since Luna now had enough power to help manage the system. Things were looking up for the two sisters. Now if only we could decided what to do about this ring, Luna thought. The meeting had been going on all morning and nopony was any closer to an agreement than they were last night.
"We've been at this for hours and haven't made much progress," Shining said.
"Well it's hard to come up with a plan of action, when we don't know what will happen when the ring gets here," Twilight replied.
"I think we should work on communication first," Cadance said.
Celestia nodded.
"I agree. It is extremely unlikely that whoever or whatever is on that ring, will speak Equestrian. There are multiple translation spells we can try, and I'm sure at least one of them will end up working, but it will take time. I would like to be prepared before the ring gets here.
Twilight looked up from her notes.
"I can work on that, I've been meaning to look at translation spells for quite some time. I can think of one problem though. All the translation spells I've read about are for direct verbal communication. Unless whoever is on that ring lands on Equestria, we can't cast it on them."
Celestia closed her eyes while she tried to remember as much as she could about translation spells.
"There are translation spells that work with written text," she said. "That doesn't directly help us, but I've been thinking about something. We may try to communicate with them via radio. I think we can adapt one of the text translation spells to work with the verbal one and combine it to work on a radio transmission, but it will require some work. I will join you in the Canterlot Archives after this meeting is adjourned."
"Twilight, there is one other thing I'd like to do," Luna said, looking at Twilight. "I would like to invite the rest of the Elements to Canterlot. I think they should know about this discovery before the general public does. I do not anticipate problems, if there are any, tis better to be prepared."
"I can go get them," Spike said.
"I don't want you taking the train to Ponyville alone."
"Oh come on Twilight, what's the big deal?"
"Shining and I can go with him," Cadance said. "There's not much else for us to do right now, so we can take Spike to Ponyville and be back with the Elements by the end of the day."
"Alright, that will give Twilight and I time to work on getting all the translation spells in order. We will meet again at dinner time with the rest of the Elements and let them know."
The ponies broke up and went their separate ways. Luna stayed at the observatory to monitor the object and work on setting up a radio transmitter. Shining, Spike and Cadance headed to Canterlot Station to catch a train to Ponyville and Twilight and Celestia made their way to the archives.
#####
Spike hopped off the train. He looked over his shoulder to make sure Cadance and Shining were still following him. It wasn't like they should have any trouble. Even at the busiest of times, Ponyville Station virtually empty compared to the hustle and bustle of Canterlot.
"Come on you two. We'll go to Rarity's first, her boutique is just a short walk from here."
The group walked quickly down Ponyville's main street. Pegasus ponies flew back and forth in the sky moving clouds around in anticipation for the light rain scheduled for later this afternoon. Spike shivered slightly. Any colder and that rain would end up as snow. The dragon preferred the heat, but at it was still only fall. Winter was far far worse than just a passing cold day. Not wanting to get caught out in the rain, he quickened his pace.
Rainbow moved a cloud into position. Her weather team was busy at work preparing the coming rain. Still though, this wasn't exactly a big storm. She could probably handle the whole thing herself. With ten other ponies helping, this was going to be a quick job. She glanced down at the town below. She was surprised to see Spike, Cadance and Shining Armor making their way across town.
"Hey Cloudchaser, I gotta fly, can you move this cloud into position?" She pushed a cloud over to the other pony.
"Sure thing Rainbow."
With a flap of her wings Rainbow descended towards the town.
"Hey Spike!"
Spike turned around and looked up towards the sound. He saw Rainbow hovering just overhead.
"I thought you were in Canterlot with Twilight."
"I was, I came to get you. Well not you specifically, but you and the rest of the girls."
Cadance quickly explained that they were rounding up the Element and needed to bring everypony back to Canterlot.
"What's going on, is it Discord? Changlings? Are we under attack?"
"Nothing quite like that Rainbow, all will be explained in Canterlot."
Rainbow made a sour face. She didn't like waiting.
"Ok, I guess. Fluttershy and Rarity are at the spa, so you three should head over there. I can go get AJ. I'm not exactly sure where Pinkie is, but knowing her, she'll probably find you first. We'll meet you at Rarity's boutique."
Rainbow flew back up into the sky and let Cloudchaser know that she had to go, then she flew off towards Sweet Apple Acres. Shining, Cadance and Spike headed towards the spa to fetch Rarity and Fluttershy.
"Sugarcube Corner is on the way to the spa. We can stop there and look for Pinkie," Spike said.
After following Spike for a short while the group rounded a corner. Shining, who had never been to Ponyville before, was surprised to see what looked like a real life gingerbread house topped with a cupcake. Walking inside, the two ponies and a dragon were instantly assaulted with the smell of freshly baked goods and sweet confections.
A small bell jingled as the door closed behind them. They heard a pony moving around in the back room.
"Just a minute!"
Pinkie Pie hopped out from the back of the store carrying a tray with 3 large cupcakes.
"Oh my gosh, Spike!" Pinkie said happily. "I was wondering why I made this."
She indicated towards one of the cupcakes, it was covered with sapphires. She set the tray down on the nearest table. With a flick of her muzzle, Pinkie tossed Spike the cupcake. Spike took a large bite.
"Mmm sapphire blueberry, my favorite."
Pinkie tossed the remaining cupcakes to Shining and Cadance, both ponies caught them with their magic and proceeded to gobble them down. Both ponies were pleasantly surprised to also have received their favorite flavors.
"My Pinkie sense said I'd have special visitors today, so I whipped up some extra cupcakes. I hope you enjoyed them."
Cadance and Shining were confused, but Spike was used to Pinkie strange abilities. He quickly explained the situation. Pinkie let the Cakes know that she had to go and the group of 4 headed over to the spa. They found Rarity and Fluttershy leaving the spa just as they got there. As they walked towards Rarity's boutique, Cadance and Shining brought Rarity and Fluttershy up to speed.
When they reached the boutique, they went inside to wait for Rainbow and Applejack. About 1/2 an hour later, the door opened and in trotted Applejack with Rainbow flying right behind her. Cadance stepped forward and addressed the crowd.
"I'm sorry everypony for having to interrupt your day. A situation has arisen and Celestia sent us to gather you Elements. I can't really get into the details yet, but as far as we know, there is no danger yet, this is merely a precaution. Princess Luna and Celestia will explain the whole thing when we reach Canterlot."
"Is Twilight still in Canterlot?" Applejack asked.
"Yes, she and Celestia are working on something. As I said before, I can’t really explain anything at this time, but even if I could, you likely wouldn’t believe me. We should get going. The sooner we can get to Canterlot, the sooner we can show you what’s going on."
The group left the boutique and headed for Ponyville Station.
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Pinkie know where everyone is at all times. She is our dark lord.
Intriguing. They're building a StarGate network.
The mix of different tech levels would actually be called "Anarchanistic Tech." where nothing really fits alongside another (but "Schizo" works
).
If you consider Arthur C. Clarke's adage: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," then with the magic that's already part of their world, it could argued that MLP is lightyears beyond even Star Trek or even equal-to or beyond the Ancients & Asgard from SG1. And look closer at SG1, you'll even see a little bit of MLP right there: how the societies governed by the G'uoald and Ori kept the humans at Medieval living conditions, but with FTL starships looking like pyramids and energy weapons dressed up as spears and magicians' staves. Some things could be extremely high tech beneath the surface, but are given "low-tech" facades for aesthetic reasons.
I haven't seen any indication of radio or even telegraphy in the show. They have electricity but not electrtonics. The only canon 'video game' we've seen we don't see the screen, only a cabinet. It could be mechanical or electro-mechanical like slot machines or early arcade games. My home town had several arcades and I remember things like that when I was a kid (which should show how old I am).
My take on the wireless headsets the goats wear is sympathetic magic. Each headset has active elements cut from a master object and enchanted so when one vibrates, they all do. They're all suspended inside the earpieces using multiple springs so they can vibrate freely. Add a sound amplifying spell such as Ghost Sound to the earpieces and a spell or something to make the 'microphone' more sensitive to vibrations and you have a workable system. It's a party line, and probably only short range, but good enough for the purpose. One of my ideas was having the master object be the tooth from as dragon, painted blue.
Lasers you can duplicate with a properly formatted light spell, the same as X rays. Creating a sensor that was basically an Alarm spell, tied to the presence or absence of the laser coloured light on the reciever surface would not be a complex job.
8085034
Umm with the cabinets there are a few in the background of the scene and you can see that they have screens