Indistinguishable from magic

by Szalhi

This world is weird.

Author's Note:

Remember how I said It was going to be a minimum of Two weeks?

I lied.

Anyway, here you get to see Josh initiate first contact as casually as possible. Wow, Imagine having an alien visit earth any they're just chill.

This chapter is unedited as of posting. I will be editing it later.

There are Equines in front of me. I thought to myself. I didn’t want to say horse, because they break the appearance of Earth horses. But they are similar. Perhaps they were related? Distantly? There were a bunch of humanoids in the universe so why not more equines?

They stared at me for a bit. I stared at them for a bit. They were aliens to me. To them? They probably thought I was an alien too. Judging by their appearance, they appear to be sapient.

Their eyes slowly looked down at the body that was below me. Oh right, they probably think I’m some sort of predator. I thought. There goes the chances of me possibly making friends with them.

“I’m just y’know, going to bury this body okay?” I said pointing to the body and a possible grave location. They stood there staring for a bit more. “I’m sure you understand.”

I started to drag the body away. Damn this body is heavy. I can handle it. I thought as the body left drag marks on the ground.

Poof

The poof startled me and I dropped the body. I turned to face where the equines were previously. They were gone. Huh, that’s weird. I thought before looking at the body. They don’t have to know I thought before dragging the body behind the ship instead preparing to break it down.

---

“Princess what was that?” Rarity asked concerned. They had all seen the strange creature. It was nothing like any other sapient species they’ve ever seen.

“I believe, Miss Pie’s Suspicions may have been true…” Luna admitted. “But It shouldn’t have been possible.”

“Wait so… that creature there, is an alien?” Twilight asked. “Well, I guess anything’s possible.”

“I wonder why you ever doubted me,” Pinkie stated matter of factly. It was a common fact that half of what Pinkie Pie said was true.

“Wait, what should be impossible?” Twilight asked tilting her head slightly.

Luna nodded. “What i previously told you was only a bit of what I was meant to tell you. This galaxy is beyond simply different. It’s too different that to avoid consequences, this galaxy is isolated. Nothing should be able to leave or enter. Or so we were told. Perhaps there is no barrier.”

“Where did you get this information from?” Twilight asked. “I’ve never heard of this in any book or scroll.”

“It’s too confidential. It’s probably for the best you don’t know. Besides, The information appears to be invalid,” Luna answered. It was probably bad for a pony to comprehend the source of the information. Luna having been around since the beginning of Equestria and with millennia of experience can barely comprehend it herself.

Twilight pouted. “Fine, but what are we going to do with the creature? We already made first contact and that did not end well.”

Luna put on a serious expression. “Twilight, the creature had hunted down a manticore,” Luna stated. “There’s no doubt that it may hunt us down.”

“Manticores are nowhere at the same level of sapience as us. Would it really be that much of a fool to hunt down a sapient species. It replied to us. It knows we’re sapient,” Twilight pointed out. “Besides, Manticores are known for being particularly territorial, for all we know, the creature is currently residing in that territory. The creature was merely defending itself.”

Luna sighed. “I suppose we could re attempt contact. I will put it through with my sister soon,” Luna said putting a hoof over Twilight. “Get some rest, tell your friends to do the same.”

---

It had been an hour and there seemed to be no signs of the equines returning. Whether they were sapient or not , I wasn’t sure, but they disappeared so quickly, it was like magic. In the meantime, I had managed to strip what I could of the corpse. Sensors indicated most of it as edible. I had the meat stored away and I was now working on the console.

“C’mon, let’s get you working,” I said as the Console neared completion. “There we go, now to set up defenses.”

The System had started up and no system errors were found. There were obvious errors, like the status of engines and the hull damage, but I dismissed them. I activated the security.

“Let’s see, External Camera’s active, except the camera over the hull breach, obviously. Internal cameras are working fine, I shall switch them on.”

I turned around and looked up at the hull breach. I was going to have to get that fixed. The security systems should alert me to any intruders.

“Okay, Now, weapons systems,” I announced as I opened up the weapon control. I was announcing everything out for the purpose of the blackbox. If for some reason I manage to get off, it would be useful to record whatever I can.”Weapons system seems fine. I’ll keep them offline for now. The recent kill should keep animals away. I’ll check the weapons in the morning.”
I turned off the display and climbed into bed. “Day 1, A pretty strange world this is. But, I haven’t seen much. I got attacked by two different types of animals. And Was discovered by what appears to be a sapient civilization. Hopefully they aren’t hostile to me.”

---

”Warning! Intruders detected.”

I awoke to the sound of the security going off. I remotely turned the alerts off, not wanting the noise to seep outside considering there’s a hull breach. I climbed out of bed and Equipped my shield. I walked over to the camera and switched to external cameras. “Let’s see what we have.”

I looked at the display on the camera. The equines were here again. Whether they were examining the crash site or actually waiting for me I didn’t know yet. But I could get a better look at them. There were subtle differences, especially in the colours. But what were more interesting were the anatomical differences.

“Is that one… Flying?” I muttered to myself quietly. Surely enough, one of them was flying. How the hell is that… nevermind, that’s probably not the freakiest thing.

There appeared to be four different types of Equines. There were two that resembled Horses the most, but they were more muscular than the rest, as if it was natural. There were two that had wings, one of them was flying as mentioned before. The other one wasn’t. The wings seemed to be too small for them, yet they still seemed capable. There was that had a horn. The horn looked like it was specifically made for something though. There was one that had wings and a horn. The last two were the most interesting. They were large, the largest of them all. They had horns and wings at the same time like the other one and they were wearing regalia. Is this a diarchy? Do they expect me to know protocols?

I grabbed my pistol from nearby and holstered it just incase. The chances of me being able to talk to these Equines was low, but maybe the universal translator could do it.

I turned off the display and climbed outside. The Equines were still waiting for me. The White big one noticed me and signalled for the others to stay back. It approached me slowly while I climbed off the ship.

“Ugh, Hey…”

“Hello.”

Holy shit, It just spoke English! Granted, it was probably just the one word but…

“Do you understand me?”

My god, it’s working! That’s convenient… Hold on… I looked through my inventory. The Universal translator was in there. That means it wasn’t on. I Scratched my head.

“We can understand each other…” I stated.

“That means it works,” The Equine replied.

“Yes, it works. I guess. Whatever you’re referring to.”

She looked at me sheepishly. “The Spell. That’s assuming you know what spells are.”

Spells? As in magic? Like, magic is a thing here? But magic is unexplainable. Surely they wouldn’t call it that if they know how it works.

“Like, Magic?” I blurted out.

She smiled. “I see you are accustomed with magic.”

I blinked. “Is that what you call it? Because I’m only calling it that because I don’t know what it exactly is.”

“You don’t know what magic is?”

I shook my head. “Magic doesn’t exist where I’m from.”

“So you must be extraterrestrial then. This whole world revolves around magic,” She said before pausing. “Why are you so calm?”

“I’ve seen weirder stuff. This isn’t the weirdest. Besides, I’m not really apart of any big space civilizations so there’s no real first contact protocols,” I answered. Truthfully, I had no reason to act weird. If they were hostile and managed to take me out, then I’m only one person. I’m not introducing them to the rest of the universe, they don’t even appear to be ready for that. And I’m not ready to accept claims for first contact.

“Fascinating, Life really does exist out there? How much life do you know of?” A Different voice came from beside her. The Purple one with both wings and a horn was now standing next to her.

“Twilight, you were meant to stay back with the others,” the Diarch deadpanned.

“Oh, but Celestia! This is a new Species, one that’s extraterrestrial!” Twilight pleaded.

I stepped between them. “I can assure you that I am no harm to you. I’m sure you’re basing your judgements off the scene from before.”

“Well I wasn’t there at the time...” The one named Celestia informed. “But I’m sure you had your reason?”

I nodded. “The Creature was overly aggressive. I’m saying that because it came here with a group but it was the only one that didn’t try to flee. I hope I can be forgiven.”

Celestia nodded. “I’m not sure about my ponies here. But I probably would’ve done the same.”

“Ponies? Is that what you’re all called?” I asked. Sure It might be a translation error but that’s the name of some equines back on Earth

“Um, excuse me, I’m sorry if I’m interrupting, but why are you here?” Twilight asked. “What business would an alien have here?”

“I didn’t come here intentionally if that’s what you’re asking. I was escaping from pirates. I don’t know why they were there, and they seemed like they were over prepared for the situation,” I explained. The area I was scavenging would’ve been too insignificant for A big band of pirates to be there. Was there something important there?

The others had approached by then and seemed shocked. No surprise that they probably haven’t experience real combat in their life.

“How did you ever escape?” The Yellow winged one asked.

“I’m not really a civilian. I’m a scavenger. My job requires me to be prepared. It’s not a safe job. I do it because I’m good at it.” I saw a hoof get raised. “I have some rules that separate me from pirates. Like I don’t steal what’s obviously claimed.” The Hoof went down.

“Does that include…” she said before trailing off. I understood what she was getting to.

“Yeah, I am required to kill. I mean, sometimes it seems wrong, but you’ve got to know that the pirates shoot first and have no respect for my existence,” I clarified.

She seemed kind of alright with this. Maybe she understood survival. I mean, I was sure they all did.

“Hey I was kind of thinking, there are four variations of you, what’s up with that?” I asked.

“There are technically six, but the last two are harder to explain,” Twilight answered. “Everypony is born as a different race. This is determined mostly by the parents genetics, but some other factors can go into it.”

“Right, and you’re all basically the same species right?”

She nodded. “We’re all capable of breeding together. The three basic different types of us are Pegasi who can fly and control the weather, Earth ponies who are centralised around strength and nature and Unicorns who actively have spell capabilities...”

“Woah woah woah hold on,” I said interrupting her lecture. “Pegasi what now?”

“Pegasi control the clouds.” She noticed my expression. “What’s wrong?”

“That doesn’t really happen anywhere else I’ve been. Every world I’ve been too has self managing weather.”

“Really? That’s so weirdly fascinating!” Twilight expressed. “So to you our planet must be really weird in that sense.”

“I’ve seen weirder things.” This planet is close to the top though.

Comments

[ssokolow]

OK, first impressions.

The story has potential, but it does feel like your writing style could use polish. (At times, it feels like you're in too much of a hurry to get to something you value and, as such, you gloss over details which you may or may not come back to later. (That, in turn, leads the storytelling to suffer when the readers' uncertainty or incorrect assumptions interfere with the process of building an appropriate impression.)

For example, it's hard to enjoy the story fully when I'm still plagued by a nagging sense of uncertainty over why Luna felt such a great deal of urgency and I spent almost an entire chapter refusing to get into the story because it seemed so likely that this was going to be one of those "Equestrian = English and it's never explained" stories and I didn't want to let myself get disappointed when other "too convenient for the author" details started popping up.

(I also think that, while the idea of Luna controlling the night sky because Equestria is in a special galaxy is a novel one, it's not necessarily a good one. Again, it's just too author-convenient to suspend disbelief. A whole galaxy controlled by one mare on one world in an otherwise realistic universe? Why!? Who set all of this implausibility up? Why, the author of course! (Which shatters the illusion of a living universe that needs to be established for a story to really satisfy.)

Also, your title is poorly chosen, because a title is supposed to be a micro-summary of "what the story is about"... I seriously doubt the inhabitants of Equestria will allow it to be scavenged while they're still alive and using it.

[Szalhi]

8049808 You're probably right on the terms of the title. I specifically made it clear in the description that Equestria wasn't the name of the planet as a whole so he will most likely be scavenging elsewhere.

On the topic of convenience? I'm glad you informed me about that because I never intended to skip over so many things but Now i fear I will.

[ssokolow]

8050787

You're probably right on the terms of the title. I specifically made it clear in the description that Equestria wasn't the name of the planet as a whole so he will most likely be scavenging elsewhere.

For future reference, there are various tricks that can be used to find a title. For example,

1. Make the title both descriptive and a reference. (For example, if your story carries similar themes to Disney's A Kid in King Arthur's Court or Mark Twain's original A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, you could name it "A Scavenger in Princess Celestia's Court")

2. Name the story after some significant phrase... ideally one which, when it appears in the story, will cause the reader to reinterpret the meaning of the title in a significant enough way to cast the whole story in a new light. (While I'm having trouble remembering a perfect example, a good enough one that comes to mind is a fun Harry Potter fic I've re-read multiple times called The Lie I've Lived.)

3. Just find an unassuming phrase that sums up what your story is about. Most of the 1000+ books stacked two layers deep above and behind my monitor have fairly mundane titles like Blue Adept, Nightfall, Powers That Be, 1632, and Airframe.

[SUPERETHAN2]

“I wonder why you ever doubted me,” Pinkie stated matter of factly. It was a common fact that half of what Pinkie Pie said was true.

Pinkie: Never doubt me.
Narration: Half of what Pinkie says is true.
Me: Just automatically trust someone who is only right half the time with the crazy shit she says? Maybe if I was a fucking idiot.