The academy years went by fast for Minerva. She was paired up with a crew that would hopefully be the crew she would set sail with. She aced all her classes and the academy praised it's engineers for creating realistic simulators witch they used for training purposes.
this was the last test before graduation. it was a week long ordeal in the simulator and there was a cliffhanger ending yesterday.
“Late the class again?” The commander snapped at the sophmore cadet. Minerva approached the 1st officers chair on the simulated bridge and slid her keycard though the chair’s console for authentication.
“Cold water in the shower sir, but it won't be an issue. I suggest we get maintenance on that environmental problem, commander.”
Her classmate shrugged at the commander and his late first officer and learned into his center chair. He wasn’t the most pleasant of ponies, and his grades were just enough to pass. His pink fur didn't really fit sometimes.
“Is that sass in your voice, Cadet heartway?” He motioned at the environment "You’re not on a ship yet.”
“Sorry sir, I’m here now. We should continue with the simulation, yes?” Minerva stood at stand by near her console.
The commander sighed and stepped off the bridge. “Yes.”
“Were we left of last time. You had the survivors of the Tartarus all rescued.”
After a few moments, The lights when down and the simulator’s consoles lit up. they were all famiiar, consles filed with buttons for every single command. It looked just like the real thing now. the sensors came up with the situation all simulated. it acted brilliantly.
“Simulation Started.” the disembodied computer voice said. The cadet captain snapped into command mode and got out of his chair. He pointed at the science officer.
“I want to know if the Tartarus is going to explode and how far away we need to be if it does.” He pointed to the Operations officer “Make sure that medical has everything they need to tend to the wounded.” he pointed to the helmsmen. “We don’t need to be that close to the ship. brings us three hundred KM away.” He must have thought about this last night before he went to bed. And I, like normal, decided to react to his orders on the dot. And then he pointed to Minerva.
“I need a damage report” he said, standing up slowly towards minerva..
Minerva checked her console and read some of the status messages ”Seems as though the FTL port engine is suffering from a 45% loss of power, seems the gravaton wings are down. engineering is on that...”
The cadet science offer perked up. “The Taruras is going to destruct in about five minutes sir, reports say we need to be one thousand KM away.” Minerva always saw him as a 'Fluttershy' type person. they always shared the pink and yellow hues.
the helmsmen added “Manuvering one thousand five hundred KM away from the Tartarus.”
“Sir,” 'Flutterwhat' as she is nicknamed reports him his sensors “Teams are also reporting a strange reading emanating about thirty thousand KM of our port bow.” she fixed her glasses.
“Oh” The cadet captain said. After a brief pause he continued with a meager, “really?”.
“What else can you tell us about it?” Minerva said, trying to pick up the pace that the cadet captain had just slowed down. She too has studied how to anticipate his reaction and react.
“It’s…I don’t know? It’s omitting a lot of strange readings according to my Science team, neither of them can make heads or tails of it. They’re going to try .” she looked at minerva and fixed his glasses.
“Boost power to the Magic amplifiers, let’s see if we can’t give them a clearer signal.” she gave the science pony a nod. “Helmsmen Featherlight?”
“Yes sir?” he said
“Can we get a visual at all?”
“Let me try, sir.” he started to let his wings move around, as small sensors react as inputs for the meager electric screen.
“First officer, what are you doing?” The faux captain sounded flummoxed
“Getting things done, ‘Captain’.”
“Step down, I’m the one in command here” Spouted the Cadet Captain angrily, as he sat back down in his center chair. “Helmsmen, can you get the readings on screen?”
“Too far away, but auxiliary feathers are picking up graivimetic distortions, we’re being pulled towards it at a 6.7 WP and climbing .4 every minute…attempting to compensate.” the ship surged a little bit. well, simulated surge.
“ah! so it’s got it’s own gravity well!” Minerva said excitedly. After all, this kind of thing was what the Royal Equestrian Navy is all about; Discovery.
“I think we need clearer readings on it before-” The captain started, right before Minerva cut him off.
“We can narrow down our choices as to what it might be with what we have. Science Cadet Flutterwhat, Does it have a wight exceeding that of a collapsed star, by any chance?”
She science pony entered the request in his console to the simulated science team. “Yes,” she said “Deffintely greater then 10 times the wight of a dying star.”
“And chance clairvoyant magic could get us a rough description of it’s color?” Minerva asked the Science pony once more. The Cadet captain just sit there, flummoxed and bewildered, as the science pony made the request.
“We’re just waiting a moment for the result, sir.” Berry bloom replied.
The helmsmen reported that the feather-sensors were detecting a greater gravitational pull.
“Color results are back, It seems to be…it seems to be pitch black Cadet Commander.”
“But isn’t that the color of space anyway?” The cadet captain chimed in. Minerva turned to him and scoffed.
“It’s also the color of a black hole, my faux captain.” she said. “keep up"
“Yeah...”
“We’re being sucked into a black hole, I don’t think now is the time.” She said. She moved quickly over the helmsman Featherlight. “Don’t you remember what the procedure is to escape it? It was in class, and you’re pretty good in class.”
The pegasus looked excited as she grabbed the com and the manual controls. “This one’s going to be tricky.”
"Engineer teams, flappers, come in" He winged pony said over the comm channel. A voice replied instantly, representing a friendship team that most likely doesn't exist yet.
"Flappers here, We're ready for anything." The voice said. The bridge started to shake... as realistic as it could have been.
"We need to pull a shotgun showdown." The helms pony said with a smile. that was a maneuver in witch the ship accelerates towards the black hole and uses it's intense gravity to slingshot away from it.
considering this was the final test before graduation.
"No problem. Wait for the light." And with that the comm channel was cut. The helman fiddled with his console and waited for the conformation that the magic the friendship team needed to prepare was ready for use.
The captain nudged Minerva aside. "I have to give the order to execute that command."
"No objections here." the cadet commander said.
the simulated black hole caused lights to flicker and the entire platform to being moving in a jerky fashion. The entire crew held on, realizing this manuver was actually hard to pull off. one wrong on-the-fly calculation by the helmsman and the entire ship would get sucked into the black hole. thank goodness there were no such treats in actual space.
Now its story's like this that I don't really like at all. Stories that happen in the distant future, I hate them because its all false all of it and Minerva heart way in my opinion has the personality of a rock. And only 279 years after her return that is a load of crap based on the ponies technology it would take them at the least another 1,500 years after comparing them with human technology.
Actually, I think the timeframe is pretty accurate. Assuming Equestrian tech level at 1750 CE Earth, 250 years is enough time to get a space program up. Without the money-drain that wars are, and with a leader that doesn't pander, it's possible.
1463821
While I have yet to give this a read one way or the other, I would like to state that Pony technology is something up for debate. They have things from the early industrial age, and yet they also have thing from modern day, or at the very least the 1950' onward. Quite honestly, we can't really say for sure what level of technology they're really at.
Nope.
1463864 I say that they are in around the age of medieval knights but they have stereos and things like that but no TV's or anything else like that. Strange
Looks like a decent idea, could use a proofreader...
*offers the editing machete*
I'd take off the first half of the description, and just leave the second half, telling us about the story. Oh, and make the main character's name consistent, Heartfelt or Heartway, whichever.
Chapter 2... Hmm. Depends on the feel you want for your story, but in serious military undercutting the chain of command (even in a sim) even if the one in the command chair is an idiot, is kinda a bad thing, and not smiled on. Doing your best to make him not look like an idiot is the preferred choice. Being a good officer of your nation requires both the ability to follow commands as well as leading, and this is as true for an ensign as for a ship's captain.
1463948 I'm never enthusiastic when an author doesn't even bother properly proof-reading their description.
1463850 it's possible just not in that amount of time and a ship powered by friendship absolutely preposterous friendship is not something that can be seen, heard, smelt, or felt. Then my question is how would they be able to power the ship. It's impossible since friendship is a word and cannot be truly made of anything therefor making it impossible to run on that power source.
1463984
This is a fanfic of a tv show with talking ponies... I think that it is possible.
1464005 wrong it can't happen didn't you read my comment I just stated that it can't happen because it doesn't take up space therefor it can't happen. I don't care what kind of physics ponies have they have to be similar to ours.
1464036
Tell that to Pinkie Pie.
Or a bit more seriously... Any sort of Faster Than Light travel in fiction carries with it the unstated premise that physics, as we know it, can be broken, by some method. If you can't suspend your disbelief that far, why are you even looking at this story?
1464062 pinkie pie is pinkie pie and I don't see her in this story anywhere and going the speed of light is impossible with the resources humans and equines posses and why am I looking at this story to be quite honest I don't even know.
1463958
They also have an arcade machine, and what looks like primitive computers. Plus modern looking construction equipment, not to mention theoretically the possibility of them having Tanks.
1464036
Friendship is Magic in the world of Equestria. The Elements of Harmony are nothing more than friendship weaponized. Why else would it have such a powerful effect against of being of disharmony and Discord.
1464036
Bro, considering there's MAGIC and TALKING TECHNICOLOR HORSES, I'd think that friendship-powered systems would be a viable thing.
1. Being all chummy-like would
-Raise crew morale
-Power the ship sufficiently
-Having magic would be able to make the very emotion of friendship into matter that takes up space. [i.e; Season 2 Finale; using Shining Armor and Princess Cadence's love as a form of matter, the two were able to defeat Chrysalis. The scene shows Chrysalis disintegrating, clearly a sign of matter decomposing the changeling queen]
2. I emphasize, I EMPHASIZE:
-They're talking horses. Anything is possible.
-Besides, what do you know about quantum mechanics and physics?
So to finish off,
i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/131/351/eb6.jpg
1464110 unfortunately I am neither trolling or stupid I'm just throwing my opinions out there to see if anyone can come up with a better one. Trolling my friend is a completely different act of what I am doing.
1464093 true but what use would a tank be to magical talking ponies in the first place? A war is definitely out of the question since you know the royal sisters control the sun and the moon, and without those I'm pretty sure they would all die.
1464150
Exactly my point. I'm not saying your opinion is wrong, it's just that it seems irrational and out of place in a land where there's legitimate magic, talking horses, and such.
1464168 fair enough it is a little irrational. To be honest I'm not in the greatest mood today so yes I do believe I was being a bit irrational, can you guys forgive me for my blindness in thought.
1464184
Of course. We're all friends here
1464195 well then I'm glad.
1464164
and btw, their physics are a whole lot different if their "gods" can say: Screw you Law of Gravity, we're moving the sun and moon AROUND our planet and when we want it.... and god help us if Pinkie ever gets unicorn magic.....
then, just like other repliers said: in this series, they actually use Friendship as a way to catalyze magic and focus it, this friendshipped magic can then be used in a number of ways.
and like someone else said. FTL is ALL about saying "Buck you, relativistic speed, we're just gonna cheat"
after all.... NO actual FTL engines in ANY media is actually FTL, they always involve wormholes/alternate dimensions/warping space in front of the ship
it NEVER is said that they actually reach 310 000 km/s or higher
1464184
*hugs* Yeah, I can forgive you for that.
1464227
Read the prologue; figuring out how to handle the powers of the Royal Pony Sisters work is something every 'ponies in space' fic has to confront, in their own ways.
1464036
I restate my earlier comment, magical talking ponies that can use friendship as a weapon to defeat an alicorn and a spirit of chaos... also is their physics are the same or near same to ours, how does pinkie pie be pinkie pie?
I would say this is going a little too fast.
I love spaceships so I am going to stick with this though.
1464227
There are few actual descriptions that actually explain actual FTL travel. For example, http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/FTL
1464087
cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/24924582.jpg
1464664 Perfect colour scheme for space exploration //dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Trixie_lolface_1.png
th06.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2012/251/8/4/celestia_1_by_blazikenking-d5e0jl5.png
I built that. I just figured it would be relevant to the story's theme, so here it is.
1464664
And now I miss my giant tub of lego's.
1465177 I used Lego Digital Designer. It's free and there are guides around to show you how to enable LDD Extended on it. After that, it's like having an even bigger tub of Legos, including parts you may have never even imagined. I've got more things I made there on my dA page.
1464632
oh yeah, I didn't think about that one BUT, then Ill rephrase it to MOST FTL drives do not actually go faster than light at all
So flame war on pony engineering/FTL drives? oh wait too late
1464506 tis because she is pinkie pie.
woah there
woah there everyone
woah there
this makes me want to write this even more
1464664
this is my new head cannon ship design