Friendship is Sufficiently Advanced

by Cordial Nova

III. Correspondence

My Dear Twilight Sparkle,

This night past We have observed a strange object moving through Our sky without and in defiance to Our command, having appeared in close proximity to the new star We have previously discovered, presently visible at declination 1 ° 22 ' 11", right ascension 5:33:10. Inasmuch as such a happening might pose a threat to Our little ponies, We sought a closer examination of this object, and have discovered it to be a curious conveyance - a sky-ship if We might indulge the term - bearing with it a stranger of kind unknown to Equestria, which named itself an explorer for its Empire, and spoke of seeking knowledge and friendship in Our Realm.

Rather than permit this stranger to wander freely throughout Our sky, or receive it here among the crowds of Canterlot and before the eyes of the world, We have dispatched this stranger and its conveyance to a location outside Ponyville. While We would ask this as a favor if We could, all matters of the sky - and so any travellers from beyond it - are within the purview of the Night Court, and so We must request and require this of you: satisfy this visitor's curiosity, to such extent as it seems prudent, and learn all you can of it and its intentions, and of any threat it poses to Us and Ours. Neither We nor Our Sister can think of anypony better suited for this task.

We enclose an amulet We have fashioned of the words We have gathered from the visitor's dreamscapes. We believe it may assist you in establishing communication.

Princess Luna,
Keeper of the Moon,
Queen of the Midnight Skies,
Avenger of the Herd,
Diarch of Equestria

---

Dear Princess Luna,

Unfortunately, I only received your letter some hours after the arrival of this visitor on the verge of the Everfree Forest.

The visitor's sky-ship seems to have been damaged at some point? Its back was broken where it was lying, and some flammable gas was venting from within it. (You may have seen this for yourself; the column of flame must have been visible from Canterlot before it was extinguished by Ponyville's weather team and assistance called in from Cloudsdale.) Luckily, the forest did not catch, and nopony was badly hurt, although several pegasi were singed when the gas first ignited.

The visitor is a biped, somewhat resembling a minotaur in shape, but much thinner and proportionately longer in the limbs, and as tall as two ponies, with a short red mane on their head only and no coat to speak of; only smooth pale skin. The face roughly resembles ours, but strangely flattened, with small eyes and no muzzle. And their blood is blue! I've never read about anything like it! I've sent a separate letter to the Canterlot Archives asking if they have any books that might mention such creatures, but have either you or Princess Celestia heard of anything like them before?

I have not yet been able to speak to them. They escaped their sky-ship just before the fire, and were injured in the initial explosion. I have taken them to Ponyville Hospital, but for now they remain unconscious, and beyond removing a most fascinating garment and bandaging their obvious wounds the doctors have little idea how to treat them.

Their sky-ship, whose front section remained mostly intact after the fire was extinguished, is being guarded by some of the local militia. I would like to ask if you could send some Royal Guards here to take their place? We've already had to pull three local fillies out of it twice!

Twilight Sparkle,
Bearer of the Element of Magic,
Daughter of House Twinkle

Comments

[Harmony Muse]

a like and a track for you,

Also I would request more information about this "god bothering protocol" as it seems to be a divine varient of the Crocodile hunter jamming his pinky in alligator bums

[zakueins]

"Cutie Mark Crusaders Technical Engineers, yay!"

The next sound is of a much larger explosion...

[Cordial Nova]

7220186 Thank you kindly!

And it is, pretty much, only even less advisable.

In Cordelia's hard(ish) SF 'verse, "god" is short for "weakly godlike superintelligence" - like Vernor Vinge's Powers or Charles Stross's Eschaton, say - the sort of planet-sized AI you might expect to find moving suns around and messing with planetary rotation and doing all the other things that make the Equestrian solar system unique. "God-bothering" is the gentle art of taking a close look at them and hopefully talking with one of their sub-sub-subroutines without getting your brain eaten.

(Is it better or worse to have encountered alicorns instead? Well, we'll see...)

[bh18]

Two things to say. One, this is kinda cool partially because I'm familiar with your stuff, at least in regards to ProjectRho's Astromilitary section. Instant follow!

Two: Goddammit Luna.

[Stone_Carver]

Loving the story so fare but why does she have blue blood? She is human, right?

[Cordial Nova]

7992948

Eenope. No humans in this 'verse.

(Longer details here, but the short version is this: in the original-SF 'verse this fic crosses over with, her species - Eldrae kirsunar - are distant descendants of a branch of the human evolutionary tree, relocated and modified by ancient aliens 'way back in history. In this crossover, I'm substituting Equus for Earth, and so they're instead descended from a now-extinct Zebrican plains ape, whose extinction is why humans never evolved in this AU and instead the equines became the dominant species.

Her distant ancestors probably were about as close to us as Neanderthals, but there's been a lot of evolution and genetic modification since then...)

[Bugsydor]

We've already had to pull three local fillies out of it twice!

Cutie Mark Crusaders, Space-wreck explorers. Yay!

[RDDash]

So, basically Luna is an idiot in this story? She almost blew up Ponyvile with that explosion.

[Cordial Nova]

9762227

Oh, no, Luna’s probably one of the smartest ponies alive. But even very clever ponies can make mistakes when confronted by Outside Context Problems, and no-one on Equus but some of Twilight’s favorite speculative fiction authors have any idea how starships work, or are built, or whether they might have issues with gravity.