G5.01: Settling
They didn't ride the same train all the way to their destination. The “Crystal Empire” was apparently half a continent away, and to take too direct a route would make them too easy to follow. They hadn't exited at the end of the route Dust negotiated, but instead slipped off the train while they waited in other cities.
James couldn't help but feel paranoid and a little shy as they walked through a few other small towns, even though each one was as different from Dodge Junction as Dodge Junction had been from Stormshire. With one notable exception: most of the residents in each city they visited didn't have wings, or at least didn't seem to be using them.
Much more importantly, none of the other ponies they spoke to stopped and stared at her, claiming that she was really some dead relative returning to them after months in the grave. They spent nearly two full days in travel, and in that time not a single pony acted towards her with anything worse than indifference. Sweet, marvelous indifference.
James had joined the Pioneering Society to be an explorer, but just now she didn't feel up to doing very much exploring. She didn't keep a journal of all the different city configurations and make guesses about the underlying social foundations. She didn't even improve her language skills by trying to talk to as many of the natives as she could. Full immersion might be the fastest way to learn a language, but James wasn't up to it. She needed a rest, and she took it.
Mostly the travel was boring and isolated, exactly the way she wanted. Mail carriers were not vehicles of speed, nor were cargo trains. That meant long hours riding along with ordinary countryside blurring past the openings, spent either resting alone or nestled against Lightning Dust's wings.
She kept meaning to get out her transmitter and ask what had happened to the last generation, but in the end decided against it. She could do that once she got time away from Dust. If the pegasus decided that she wanted to destroy James's communication equipment this time, it might be a far more arduous task to get her a replacement. Delivery drones with solar coating could make journeys of nearly indefinite length with satellites to guide them, but when those journeys might also involve being detected by native creatures who could fly, then whatever was being delivered had to be worth the risk incurred by traveling there.
For the last leg of the journey, a northward passage up from a city called Vanhoover, Dust booked them a few tickets on a passenger train. Instead of restless sleep or nervous pacing on a metal floor, James relaxed into a comfortable chair clearly designed for ponies, with a raised cushion that supported her belly without putting too much pressure on it. Compared to the cold that had begun to penetrate every vehicle they rode into the north, the heated cars were an unimaginable luxury.
She felt a gentle nudge against one of her legs, light enough that she almost missed it. James sat up, blinking and rubbing the moisture from her eyes. "W-what?"
"We'll be coming through the shield any second," Dust said. "I think you'll want to see."
James had her doubts about that. The windswept wasteland of snow and ice had continued unbroken for hours. One snowy wasteland started to look much like another through the glass. She got up anyway, crossing the comfortable train car to the windows on the other side. Propping herself up on the seat, James braced herself for disappointment.
The train had nearly crested a hill, and she could feel their motion begin to slow as they neared the top. James searched, and found a towering archway set up around either side of the tracks not far ahead, glittering in the weak northern sunlight. It looked to be made of colored glass, or perhaps an enormous quartz crystal, like those in underground caves in Mexico, with geodes gigantic enough for people to climb. Impressive for such an apparently primitive society to cut without shattering, but nothing that incredible.
Certainly not worth getting up over. But then they passed through, and the air all around seemed to shimmer, what had seemed like an endless expanse of snow and ice melted away in a fraction of a second, and the train continued downward into a rounded valley.
There was no snow within, no trace of the cold. The train turned sharply to the right, riding along the rim of the valley, almost as though the route had been specifically chosen to give the best views.
It was like nothing on Earth. At the very center of the valley was a towering structure of blue-white crystal, without apparent seams or cracks, towering so high into the sky it rose above the edges of the valley itself. "H-how..." James stammered, her mouth opening and closing. "Th-that shouldn't... it's so heavy!"
A whole city of glassy-looking buildings had been built around the tower, though the rest she could see from this angle resembled those she had seen in other pony towns. They didn't seem to be built with any greater technical skill than that demonstrated by the skyscraper. The rest of the valley was taken over by fields and crops, swaying along to a gentle breeze. There were ponds, lakes, parks, orchards... everything that James imagined a self-sufficient little city might need that was otherwise surrounded by ice and snow.
"I came for the games once," Dust said from the seat beside her. She'd been looking out the window the whole time, apparently without James noticing. "I felt the same way when I saw it. The castle goes as high as the foundations of some low cloud-buildings.”
"How—" James tore her eyes from the window, turning back to Dust. "I didn't think you had... the technologies to build something like this."
Lightning Dust shrugged. "It's an ancient city, built by unicorn magic from long ago. That's as much as I know."
James looked back out the window, staring at the spire, at its sloping peak, and the smaller towers that glittered alongside the central structure. She could only imagine how impressive it would seem when standing at the base. If ponies were anything like humans—and so far, they'd often proven they were—there would be a museum she could visit somewhere in the city where she could learn more. How wealthy was this empire that they could build their monuments out of crystal?
Maybe this place was a hint at some long-lost history of pony society, lingering back to an ancient golden age. Humanity's climb to civilization had been rocky, so it stood to reason that the ponies' had been as well. "We're really gonna live here? On the ground?"
Lightning Dust nodded, whispering into her ear. "Ponies will be looking for us. Everypony who knows me knows how much I hate the ground. They'd never think to look for me here. Plus, the Crystal Empire has its own services, separate from the rest of Equestria. I'm crossing my hooves they don't pass records."
I'm a fugitive, James thought, smiling faintly to herself. Bet nobody at the Pioneering Society expected that. "Will we be... okay?" she asked, struggling for a more descriptive word but not finding it. "You worked at a... factory, before. Are there more factories here?"
"We'll be fine. We've got plenty of bits to hold us over until I find something to do. Don't worry about a thing." She reached over, messing with James's mane. "I'm used to this kind of thing by now."
James found she didn't really mind, though she pushed Dust's hooves weakly away with her own. At least Dust knew what she was doing. That made one of them.
The rest of the day passed in a blur after that. Lightning Dust found them a single tiny room in an old building on the outskirts of town. James couldn't tell if it was an apartment, or a hostel, or if those concepts even had any meaning to the ponies. They seemed to have private property and a currency and something like capitalism, but she couldn't be sure. Not even really my job. Once I figure out the language I'm done. Maybe she could ask for a few more advanced language textbooks. She'd just about finished with the basic Eoch. Maybe a dictionary too, so she could start memorizing vocabulary.
The room wasn't very large, around three meters on either side, with crude wooden furniture and a single tiny window that was too high up the wall for James to reach. There wouldn't be any room for privacy while living here. James might not get another chance to communicate with the probe for days if she didn't use it now.
She didn't bother with the armor—she wasn't going out into the snow, and she wasn't going to have another fight. Hopefully.
The new transmitter still had all three of its legs, not that it needed them. The dish wasn't damaged this time, nor were there any cracks in the casing leaking radioactive fuel.
James set up the tripod on the bare floor in the center of the room, then extracted the computation surface and paired it with the transmitter. The dish spun until it pointed at the window, flashing a green laser out into the afternoon sky a few times.
Connection Successful, the screen said. You have one new message.
I have... She shivered, tapping the screen with one hoof. What the hell? She reached out, and with a little nervous prodding she managed to tap the correct part of the screen to get the message to enlarge.
Greetings linguistics team.
My name is Major Olivia Fischer, as of this moment I am directing the colonization effort. I am led to understand you have been successful thus far, but the Forerunner probe indicates you have not been logging reports as specified by the SPS Handbook. I expect you to begin filing reports immediately, and to provide me with a summary with your progress thus far.
The Forerunner indicates you are the only surviving members of your generation. While the stupid AI might not care about our lives, I assure you my attitude will be very different. Your safety, as well as the safety of my team, is of chief interest to me. To that end, please include in your summary any information you might have regarding any possible threats to our lives present on this planet.
Also, I don't give a shit what the Forerunner says I should do if something happens to you. If you're in any danger whatsoever, I will use every available resource to recover you.
Invictus Maneo
Major Olivia Fischer
James read over the message several times, though of course there was no place in her mind for doubt. Forerunner probes could do many things, but write convincing letters were not one of them. She shouldn't have been surprised—it was foolish to assume the probe would be content doing nothing for years while she studied the language. It would still be advancing towards its goals in other ways. It doesn't have other linguistic teams, right? At least the probe gave me somebody who cares about our lives... The way the Pioneering Society Handbook sometimes talked about them, they were just resources. Organic tools sent across the void, like the probes Earth had once used to explore its own solar system. They didn't really have a purpose beyond the one they were sent on.
"Computer, I would like to use voice dictation to compose a reply."
"Dictation ready."
The screen cleared, replacing itself with a blank pad of paper and a flashing cursor. James began to speak in English, finding the words came with a little difficulty after so many weeks without using them. It was a good thing her memory for languages was so good.
"Olivia,
“I apologize for not being able to file my reports—until a few days ago, my equipment was lost and I had no way of communicating with the probe. I recently received replacements, and should be able to make regular reports back to you, and be able to exchange brief messages. I have been living for these many months completely submerged in the native society, learning the language as I struggle to survive. Upon my arrival, I was stripped of all my machinery and left to fend for myself.
“You aren't going to believe this, but the society here closely resembles one from back home. The aliens call themselves ponies, live in a country called Equestria, and speak a language called Eoch. This nation is a monarchy organized around a religiously revered princess who is ceremonially responsible for the night and day, like ancient Egypt. I would have a hard time giving you a good idea about their technological abilities... obviously they have not followed the same developmental path humans did.
“I have yet to encounter anything truly dangerous, except occasional mentions of ‘monsters.’ I fear they may see the humans of some previous generation of explorers as some of those monsters, but I don't know what happened to cause that. Something serious seems to have happened in the town nearest to the location of Forerunner Base, an alien settlement that resembles an old-west town named Dodge Junction. Do not enter it under any circumstances.
"The aliens do not have firearms, or much else in terms of military technologies, though they seem to have the understanding required to create them if given the incentive. There are few natural threats we haven't known from Earth—the area immediately surrounding the probe is prone to serious flash floods that even the Forerunner could not predict.
“I am currently living with a native who has... accepted me. Her instruction is greatly speeding my learning process—I may complete my mission in under six months at this rate.
“The Equestrian government is searching for me, though. For some reason, they're trying to collect our technology. I don't know how much they know about it, but they stole my last computer and knew what my gun was when they saw it.
“The native I am living with now protected me from them, and we have relocated to another part of the country; I don't know exactly where, but you can get my positional information off this transmission. I am not currently in any danger, but I appreciate the offer for help. I do not expect that any further intervention would be needed until I'm ready to come back.
“Regards,
“James Irwin."
End of Act 1
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Beautiful, how many acts will there be?
Awesome chapter, as always. Lol
Glad fitcher is in charge now, hopefully things go more smoothly towards peace....but knowing lucky's luck, it won't. Xp
A fitting end to this arc. Also it is nice to see that Olivia is actually using her own head to decide what should be done and doesn't follow the orders mindlessly.
Man, they really need to get to the bottom of what happened with the previous generations. Any potential peaceful coexistence with Equestria in the future almost certainly depends on figuring out what went wrong in the past.
Olivia and her newly grown crew are definitely better off forewarned about what has happened with Lucky, that's for certain. Reestablishing this particular communication link is an important step.
That signature will make some heads turn, that's for sure. But now I'm curious, how will he l she proceed now that contact with other humans has been established? How will James deal with there being two of themselves?
If this missive is signed 'James Irwin', but Olivia's team has someone named that...
Awkward.
Everyone will understand what happened, but it's still awkward.
Oh! Getting to the meat of the story, I see. I await the next chapter with rapturous appetite!
That message might hopefully make Olivia consider again about whether to force the probe to tell her the stuff it wants to keep hidden, if it's not a different interaction with the natives that the probe is trying to hide. It'll definitely make her wary of the Equestrian government though - I can't see her liking the idea of a possibly hostile government who wants to capture their people and take their technology...
Beautiful.
Thank you for the update.
Good story.
James doesn't understand. That message is certain to cause the crew to shoot up there immediately. There will be new ponies with no idea what they are doing, but doing it in a non-pony way in the Crystal Empire in a very short time. I hope lightning dust can handle this, but somehow I doubt it.
8253325 Same.
8253421
Maybe, but Olivia seems a bit more level-headed than that. For all her flashes of temper, she doesn't seem like the type to charge headlong into a dangerous situation without at least getting some intel first. I suspect she'll give James the chance to send her more information before moving out.
8253421
I don't understand your logic, why would Jame's message cause the crew to shoot up there immediately? (Not that the crew is ready yet, Olivia was told it would be a week for the others to be ready and James said she only received replacement equipment a few days ago). I don't see why the message would prompt immediate reaction even if it was possible.
Read the message he sent from the point of view of Olivia. What does that read like? It reads like someone who is in deep trouble and can't say exactly what they mean to say. There is a lot "between the lines" when I read it from that POV. I certainly wouldn't be taking it all at face value as Olivia. I'd be wondering just what James is keeping from the pathfinder(who has no compunctions about expunging agents when things go wrong) in that report and/or the ponies he is in with.
That would raise my hackles and practically DEMAND that I go see it in person.
Call it a hunch, but I think I'm going to really enjoy Olivia's role in this tale.
While I agree with the sentiment that Olivia will be suspicious and want to find James as soon as possible, I don't think she will act rashly and send soldiers or drones to get James. More likely one solider will be sent, with orders to not interact with locals and investigate James' claims. The Forerunner might have a "by any means" mindset, but a mentally stable human commander would he smart enough to hold back and try to make peace with the locals. The colonists are going to need to be ponies for several generations and Equestria is a peaceful potential ally they would aggressively court.
Is James thinking of the giant gypsum (rather than quartz) crystals in the Cave of the Crystals?
Why can't I like this twice?
WHY!?
8253504
Not really? I mean if you're really paranoid and jump to a lot of conclusions it might seem like someone trying to fit in hidden messages, but it seems more like a normal report. I don't imagine a trained soldier would jump to conclusions like that. She might send a scout sure, but go charging up there blind? Doesn't seem likely
Yay contact. Such an uplifting note to end the act on. Would be a shame if act 2 started with something going horribly wrong...again
8253706
Yes, a terrible horrible shame. I CERTAINLY hope nothing like that happens. Yup, nothing going wrong is exactly what we want...
Can't wait to see what Olivia does with her clone army.
8253253
Three. I'm a traditionalist.
Hmmm, I wonder how old Flurry Heart is. Could James potentially befriend a native her apparent age and what problems and boons could that create?
8253504 I still think you're making a mountain out of a molehill, and I suggest we leave that to the story's characters.
You say to read it from Olivia's point of view, but what is her point of view? She's clearly somewhat hot-headed, but also clearly not stupid or prone to rash actions. At least, she's not prone to rash actions in situations she recognizes as important or delicate, and this is one such situation. We can get that much from her internal monologue in the previous chapter. Even if she does think that James is in some kind of trouble that she can't reveal in a message, Olivia seems pretty unlikely to just send a rescue team rushing into an uncertain situation. She seems the type to want to learn more first and be as prepared as possible, to make sure whoever she sends doesn't just end up in trouble along with James.
“The native I am living with now protected me from them, and we have relocated to another part of the country; I don't know exactly where, but you can get my positional information off this transmission. I am not currently in any danger, but I appreciate the offer for help. I do not expect that any further intervention would be needed until I'm ready to come back.
Tragedy of some nature striking in 3... 2...
Awww, she does care!
Nice to see act one end on a relatively positive note then. We'll see if it persists. And I have to reassess my previous opinion on Olivia. Perhaps her attitude is better suited for the task than I first gave her credit for. She at least genuinely cares, and seems interested in listening to outside input from ALL parties, and use that all put together to formulate the best course of action...really the best thing you could do given the circumstances. The only lingering problem is that she is still a soldier, trained to not tolerate or put up with threats, and isn't afraid to resort to violence if ever pressed. Hopefully she won't on this occasion...but something tells me the good luck won't last in that area.
Alright, feeling kinda good about this. Olivia's level-headed and not just accepting what the Forerunner's spoonfeeding her, AND she's speaking with James to figure... out... what's... happening...
... the stupid probe's gonna kill her, isn't it?
8253504
I dunno, "Danger, they think we're monsters and are stealing our tech, don't go to Dodge Junction, also here's a huge clue as to the location of our base if anyone unfriendly is reading over my shoulder," is pretty poor communications discipline.
8254615
Honestly, I found the interaction between Olivia and the probe in the last chapter a bit unbelievable. I doubt anyone in any military command role would voluntarily accept "I don't want to give you all the information you need because reasons."
Well, Olivia's not... crazy at least. I still don't know if I'm comfortable with the agenda she's adhering to, it might be a good deal different than the agenda that James is under the impression they're pursuing.
I'm curious where LD and James are going to live, what James'll think about it. Also curious to hear more about what James thinks is gonna happen to her after her mission is complete. The Crystal Empire was made with unicorn magic, huh? Strange, considering Crystal Ponies are all earth ponies. I want to see Lightning getting herself a new job, struggling with it and persevering, then inevitably getting fired for being an evil villain. I bet James could help her immensely, help her see that running away is just making it easier for her tormentors and rewarding their persecution. Honestly it seems like James is her only hope. I don't know if she has anywhere left to run, if the Crystal Empire doesn't pan out.
...looking forward to Lightning having a pleasant encounter with the prince regent of the Crystal Empire, who just happens to have a little sister that Lightning Dust almost killed.
I love the character Olivia, is she by any chance a reference to Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood?
Hmm... Stuff? I think stuff.
‘Invictus Maneo – I remain unconquered’
Not inspiring for peaceful coexistence.
A solid end-point. I look forward to seeing how things progress.
8253301
Olivia already knew there would be two of them. She had to order the probe not to terminate the duplicate.
And James forgets to mention the fact he resembles a pony those "monsters" killed, or that the reason they're looking for their equipment is cause it caused a sickness. Yes, let's forget that stuff...
8255502 Well, seriously, does James actually *know* any of that? There was trouble of a sort, and a pony died from it, and James has been told that she looks like the pony who died. Also, the ponies from the Moondancer agency (whoever they are) claim that human tech makes ponies sick. That's not even close to the whole picture, and some of that comes from folks who James has every reason not to trust. And on top of that, James has been under a lot of stress, definitely isn't thinking entirely rationally, and is a linguist rather than some kind of intelligence operative. All things considered, he actually did a pretty good job with what he included in that message.
For some reason I suspect the message Olivia receives from James won't be the same message he sent.
8255502
8256553
This is also James' preliminary report upon finding out that there was now a living Mission Commander to report to. Presumably, a more detailed report that includes his findings, observations, and experiences will follow once James has the time and privacy to write one up.
Granted, he's a linguistics specialist, not an explorer or a diplomat, so his priorities would be different and it may not occur to him that he needs to report certain things that are otherwise outside of his area of expertise. He'll probably get around to it sooner or later.
Now, my question is, when is James going to find out that he's going to become a little sister to another James who is being fast-grown into a more mature pony body? I presume the new James is going to find out about the "younger" one that is already doing the job they were originally assigned, as the Major told the AI to assign the new James to a nonspecialized job instead rather than disposing of the almost fully grown clone.
Hmm... The Forerunner may not be able to write convncing letters, but I wouldn't put editing them past it. Not sure how much of this it'll see as harmong the odds of mission success. Still, James is relatively secure and in position to fulfill her mission.
I wonder what's going to go wrong.
I just started reading this a few days ago a I must say it is an absolutely brilliant, truly well thought out story. Keep it up!
8255782
It's been mentioned that the ponies got radiation sickness from cracking open a nuclear-based power source.
8321781
Humans get rad-sickness from that stuff, so I assume that's just one of those things like how guns would likely kill them just as well as they can kill Humans
So it's official: the computer cannot be fully trusted. It is not a human, even if the commands it has and it itself were created by humans. That means it really doesn't know how to approach these situations, and that's why it can make people to help with where it fails. However, when people fail, I think it's obvious that the computer believes it is still far more suited to handle the situation overall. For an unemotional piece of metal, it is very smug and hoity toity, as they say.
I just realized that the "G" and number meaning generation 4. Which means that this in theory would have been the 4th generation of explorers from the Forerunner, what happened to the 3 previous generations?
8533927
Same thing that happens to all the aliens in the movies when they land on earth, except this time we're the aliens.
There are acts?
8255782
What is with the black writing
9713576
Um.... Every comment on this site is in black writing. Or at least very, very, very, very, very dark gray writing to the point I can't tell the difference.
I had my doubts, but I'm beginning to like her. Livvy be like "Fuck y'all, if you're in danger imma bust you out!"
James, you better tell her about the Dodge Junction incident. "the natives are convinced humans killed a person, and our bodies are exact clones of that dead person" is reeeeally vital information for not avoiding incidents.
...
Welp. He didn't tell them the "cloned from a dead pony" part
Things are going to get so complicated when James Erwin receives mail from James Erwin