Equis has fallen. Long ago, those few gifted with immortality left their dying world, searching for a new home.
That was ages ago. They have been adrift in space for an eternity, and they have found nothing to brighten their spirits. They are starting to lose hope that there is anything for them out here.
However, what they don't realize is that their journey has just barely begun...
-GM, master of Immortals.
Cover drawn by Little Duke! http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Little+Duke
Edit: Woah. It got on the front page. This has never happened before. Thank you all so much.
Chapters (29)
Great start! I look forward to more. :)
Great atmosphere, and very interesting so far. Tracking.
This looks good! Tracked.
I wonder what is approaching? an asteroid? a spaceship? a Zerg Leviathan? a giant apple tart?
This is cool, I like it, hope that things don't end badly for them.
Curiosity rises!
Here is a guess : a green face with a big brain appears and starts saying "ak ak ak!"?
This is the kind of fic I wish I could bring myself to write. As is, I have a lot of plans but no courage.
I'm hoping it's a spam email for a horn-enlargement product.
You had my curiosity, now you have my attention
I came here with low expectations, and I received an amazing piece of work!
Please, go on. Continue to the next chapter.
And just remember, do it at your own pace.
7778426
I actually have the first draft completely written out - the plan is to, every monday, type up a chapter of the physical copy and revise it as I go. So, barring unusual circumstances, there should be a weekly update.
Glad you enjoyed it though. I have plans for this... Many plans.
-GM, master of plotting... definitely plotting...
7778583
Well then, that gives me something to look forward to on Mondays. (Is it GMT [Greenwich Mean Time], or a different time zone?)
Physical copies eh? That should allow you to make changes more easily.
Heh, master of plotting
~ Midnight Gear, Bat Pony, Thestral, Noctral, Chiropteron, Fledermaus.
7779088
It would be Monday Mountain Standard Time. While I have a planned upload day I'm not going crazy and having an upload time - that'd just be too much. And yes, not only does it allow me to make changes easily, but physically writing it down makes me think more about what I'm writing.
Hey! RESPECT THE PLOT! *overexaggerated slap* Respect it.
-GM, master of chevron seven.
Nice chapter, can we have more?
Ha ha! A new chapter! And it updates Tuesday on my time. (That was what I was asking about)
Interesting, I wonder what sort of alien race they'll discover. I hope they're not hostile.
Nice quality, as always, GM.
~Midnight Gear, Bat Pony, Thestral, Noctral, Chiropteron, Fledermaus, Inventor, Scientist, Researcher and Swordspony.
7789100
Yes!
In 7 days!
-GM, master of daze.
7789104
Oh I see. It's still early Monday for me, you must be far away.
Thanks though!
-GM, master of pixel ponies.
What's the deal with Starlight in this? Is she an immortal?
7789779
Yes, though I haven't explained how or why yet.
-GM, master of mamork.
Will this story fall to the trop of “The stars are all classical, except Celestia's sun” or will these other worlds have anomalies noticeable form at lest a lightyear away?
7790324
The story operates on the idea that Celestia's Sun was an anomaly - a small mini-star of sorts tied to Equis by magic. The rest of the cosmos functions on normal physics for the most part. Magic has an.... interesting relationship in this universe.
-GM, master of physics.
Good chapter! Another one!
And ho mare, Flurry Heart is out. She should be taken down to the planet to cut loose as well, then back to cryo.
Um, Why is Starlight awake. How is she, a unicorn, immortal?
7804846
Ah, the question everyone seems to be asking.
This will be explained eventually. As of now, nobody but me knows exactly what happened.
-GM, master of flies.
7804876
Or is it mayhaps, Cadence's motherly instincts overwriting her common sense?
Cadence does miss her family and all, especially with the fact that she is the representative of romantic love, I say romantic love because friendship is just platonic love.
I theorise that due to her... nature, she requires romantic love to keep sane.
Wow...Cadance is...I hesitate to call her insane but she's damn close. Releasing Flurry Heart onto the ship could potentially fuck everything up or cost lives-maybe not everyone would be lost, but if she fired a stray blast in the cryo bay, boom, someone or more is dead. Hell just destroying a cryopod would be utterly horrible for what they're trying.
Well, it's nice they got to see something alien. I have to wonder what effect Discord's chaos magic might have, if any, on the world in the long run.
7804903 Discords chaos might be the seed that allows the world to rebuild itself. As for Cadence releasing Flurry heart... well that is to be expected, and would have happened eventually regardless of whether or not they found evidence of alien civilization.
Hah! That's... that's really interesting.
Couldn't they remove the radiation?
7806320
Off an entire planet?
I mean maybe a small area yes, but they will eventually NEED the entire planet to live on as they repopulate.
-GM, master of areas.
7807061
Yes, off the entire planet -- 4 alicorns, a unicorn, a dream, and a decade. If you can move celestial objects around, and you have enough time, something like some silly radiation on a planet scale is foal's play.
I remember a fic where twilight had to scrub the whole moon.
7807188
Radiation is a bit harder to deal with than moving a planet around. Radiation comes from physical objects - the planet itself is made up of radioactive material. Yes, they have the power to move it, rather easily in fact. But they'd have to change the material of the entire planet down to the core to remove the radiation completely.
Now I suppose if they were desperate they would consider trying to undertake the decades long process of doing that - but they have the locations of other planets on their map, it'd be infinitely faster to just go check the others out.
Thanks for the observation though, made me think.
-GM, master of thinking.
7807219
Actually about 90% of the heat generated by the earth is from radioactive materials in the mantle and core. If you were to divest a planet of radiation, you would kill it.
You'd actually only have to remove the radiation to a pretty shallow depth to eliminate it completely at the surface. Alpha particles are stopped by paper, beta by foil (not even a cm of ground), gamma by 10cm of lead or the equivalent -- about a meter of ground.
So even at maximum safety they might do 2 or 3, maybe 5 meters. That would be enough for the roots of trees to not have issues.
---
And yes they would likely explore the other possibilities first (THAT would depend upon the relative safety of the ship undergoing an attack and just how crazy and/or naive about other species they are.)
Technically the safest thing to do would be to de-radiate a large enough portion for the ponies to be awakened, leave the pods there, and take the ship along with half of the immortals to explore the other planets while masking where they came from. Celestia, Luna, and Twilight going on the ship and Cadance, Discord and Starlight staying behind to protect the pods.
First contact if it damages/destroys the non-immortal passengers would be a bad thing.
---
Glad to provide food for thought -- nom...
7807318
Good points. XD So yes, if they found nothing else for a while they would return to this planet to deradiate it. (and that's not a word. Great.)
But they are crazy naive about other species - they've not encountered a single alien as of right now. The probe was the first thing they ever found that wasn't made by them.
But yes, I do agree the smartest thing to do in this situation is to do what you suggested - but nobody's perfect. Made a lapse in judgement. I didn't think of it, so it's not that much of a longshot to say they didn't think of it. They really have no idea how the cosmos work.
-GM, master of commentus.
7807318
I figured that the radiation on this planet was primarily from it's sun, which you wouldn't be able to remove or defend against without shielded colony structures. Also, with nothing but microbial life, this planet doesn't quite sound like a Class M world, which is what I think they're looking for.
7807814
If the radiation is from the lack of a magnetic field to protect the planet from its sun, then the problem is different, but hardly insurmountable from alicorns able to move celestial bodies. In that case Celestia would need to rotate the core of the planet.
Note also that there is enough bacteria etc, to support an oxygen atmosphere.
Oh joy........
Alien robots can only mean one thing.
Problems.
This is really cool. Eagerly awaiting the next chapter!
7789793 I'm betting the way she messed with time travel mucked up her world line and disconnected her body from the normal progression of time.
A Trojan Brick.... oh joy...
I see 2 down votes. Proof that Hitler and Stalin have been here.
Thoroughly enjoyable. Each chapter has a little surprise. The style of writing reminds me of Rendezvous with Rama, one of the great sci fi stories, where an alien object enters the solar system and the only nearby human ship gets to explore it. Lots of mystery. Lots of exploration. Wonder. Good work!
7804846
guessing it has to do with either twilight or the tree of harmony.
And now the plot begins...
I feel so bad for cadence.
Poor cadence. Also I hope the robot is good not bad.
Yaknow, Cadance, you could just climb into a pod yourself, and have a nice nap.
7817641
Thought I mentioned that each pod was specifically designed and programmed for each passenger, and they don't have ones for themselves. Or did I not explain this?
If I didn't I'll be sure to include it in a later chapter XD
-GM, master of bacon.
7818280 Oh. Maybe I forgot. Seems like poor planning. Twilight! You should've had "Cadance goes bonkers" on your checklist!
Oo... la la, sentient nano machines. Sounds... Delicious.
Yay! Pinkamena made an appearance.
I wonder how they'll interogate the machine.
Wonderful work on this new chapter.
Keep on, dancing till the world ends. (Literally in this case.)
Wish I could have joined that party. Sounded awesome.
~ Midnight Gear.
- I'll haunt you in your sleep....
Kinda funny that I'm reading a story about sentient talking magical horses on a FTL starship, and one thing that breaks my suspension of disbelief is a robot finding a way to meaningfully interface with a computer of alien making operating on a completely different physical basis.
7820603
If the nanomachine didn't have trouble understanding the computer the self destruct would have been activated within seconds.
As it is, all it was able to do was cause some problems but not get any serious stuff done.
-GM, master of ASG.