G5.05: Blood and Ink
This was not the first time Lucky Break had felt this way. Her world stretched and reticulated, an endless slow-motion explosion of pain in every tissue of her body. She felt the pressure of a thousand eyes on her, as uncomprehending of her nature as she was of theirs. Thought things that made no sense to her after, and which she would not remember. Saw, for only an instant, something that scared her even more than that.
Then she woke up. Fire in her lungs, limbs spasming and convulsing as she shot suddenly into a sitting position. Not a hospital room around her this time, but she was in bed. The blankets were her sleeping bag, the pillow her saddlebags empty of most of her gear. Every one of her possessions was, in fact, strewn about on the ground beside her.
Her collapsible guitar had a place of prominence, though it was not open. Her now-scanned book lay on the ground—she brought it with her mostly because she didn’t want it discovered by the natives in case the worst were to happen. Lots of empty food wrappers. Actually, from the size of the pile, it looked like all the food they had both brought up here.
In theory, it was possible to eat grass, or to fly a whole day on an empty stomach. In practice, Lucky felt like her stomach might eat itself if she didn’t give it something soon, and there was very little around to eat.
She was resting on the floor, in a different room. This one was larger, with what might’ve been bunks or counters along its length. An even, harsh light illuminated everything from above. On the other side of the room, she heard water gently bubbling.
“P-Princess… are you here, somewhere?”
Movement from the other end of the room, hooves galloping. Flurry Heart stepped into view, levitating the tablet along beside her. It was still open to the map even now, though it displayed a very different section of Equestria than this one. I removed all the lockouts. Flurry Heart could’ve done whatever she wanted.
Well, anything the local device could understand. Apparently, she hadn’t managed to exit the navigation app.
“I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t wake,” the princess said, feigning dignity. “Are you alright?” She sounded a little guilty, but there was no immediate sign why that might be the case.
“I… I will be,” Lucky said. “I’ve been through… I’ve felt that before. I don’t think it burned me this time.” She looked down, confirming for a moment what she already felt. She was sore all over, but that was it. Last time, she had been missing whole sections of her coat, in the moment she got her cutie mark.
The princess sat down beside her, though of course that still meant she was taller. Not just because she was a little older, either. “I thought it might be a trap at first—you were helpless, somepony could come along and collect you. But I got you away from there, and nopony came. At least I don’t think they did.”
The door to their section was closed, so Lucky couldn’t guess at what the environment outside might look like. “I don’t think it was an attack,” Lucky said, and no more. She couldn’t go into detail without explaining her cutie mark experience. That was apparently not the way things normally worked. It might give the princess insight that would lead her even sooner to the conclusion that she was an alien.
She didn’t complain about what the princess had done—not aloud, anyway. The princess would be used to being able to do things like that. She had to pick her battles. “How long was I out?”
The princess hesitated again. “I don’t know,” she said. “No sky, no stars… It feels like a long time, though. We’re out of food.” She looked away, blushing. “I tried to go slow, but I ran out a few hours ago. Gave you water—there’s water down here. You drank it, but you wouldn’t eat.”
Maybe that explained her guilt. Lucky stretched each one of her legs in turn, moving each one in every way she knew. Aside from the persistent soreness, which might very well have been inflicted by her sitting around and not moving for all this time, she felt alright. I need to fly for a bit. Get my blood moving.
She crawled out of the sleeping bag, getting shakily to her hooves. Before she could say anything else, she heard the princess again.
More guilt. “T-that’s the other thing, Lucky. I don’t want to frighten you, but it… it’s changed.”
Lucky followed the princess’s eyes to her flank. For one moment—however brief—she imagined that maybe her Sleeving had been put right. Maybe the communication system had noticed the error and corrected it. But no, she would’ve felt that, maybe even heard it in her voice. The change was to her cutie mark.
It was completely different. The guitar was gone, replaced by a scroll. From a glance, it didn’t look like there were real words on it. Just scribbles, to suggest language. But as she looked closer, she realized it was a single sentence, in a language she had only seen on one occasion.
“I’ve never heard of anything like this happening,” the princess went on. “Well, except as curses. There was this one time my aunts Celestia and Luna…”
Lucky wasn’t listening to what had happened one time to the princess’s aunts. She twisted around, so she could look more closely at her flank. Being a pony had its advantages in that way. She found the same thing she had seen before—at first, the scroll just looked like it had lines. Only with an intense stare could she see that she was looking at densely packed words, stylized the same way the Shahada was often artistically rendered.
In an alien language.
That she could read.
“Understanding brings peace,” it said, in the same language printed all over the walls.
“…but I don’t think that happened here, unless the pony you switched with is somewhere else. I’m very sorry you lost your special talent, Lucky. I just know it wanted me to climb up onto that platform. I’m the princess here… I’m supposed to protect all the little ponies. That’s what my mom always says.”
Lucky straightened and looked up. Then she laughed, embracing the princess as she did so. It was quite improper—she never would’ve dreamed of touching her like that the night she’d met her. But now she found she no longer cared about propriety. “This is no one’s fault but my own, Princess.”
The princess didn’t pull away, or stiffen uncomfortably. She only looked confused. “No, it isn’t! Equestria’s princesses watch over the ponies who can’t protect themselves! Dangerous magic attacked you, but you’re just a pegasus. If I’d been there, I could’ve blocked it.”
Lucky let go. “It wasn’t an attack, Princess. I know that now.” She pointed at the wall, with her wing, at the line of artistic letters. Well, not letters exactly. The language didn’t use an alphabet. “Can you read that?”
The princess shook her head. “You’re the explorer, Lucky. If you don’t know it, how would I?”
She beamed. “It says ‘Surgical Recovery Wing Pegasus-Sugar-2.’”
Flurry Heart didn’t seem moved. “What… does that mean?”
She had spoken in Eoch of course, or as close as she could. The ponies didn’t have the same conception of surgery this word implied. Which somehow, she knew. This wasn’t a mapping of terms, as students in secondary school did to learn whichever of the two universal languages they didn’t speak. It was as a native might learn—natural correspondence between concepts. She might’ve had a hard time explaining it to anypony else, since it wasn’t a matter of internal translation like Eoch had been at first.
“I have no idea,” she eventually said. “Not that, anyway. But it means I can read things! I can…” Her stomach rumbled. “The hallways have direction signs.” She turned, flying back to her things, and shoving everything up awkwardly into her saddlebags. She left the trash right where it was—somehow, she doubted the owners of this place would care much.
“We can leave?” Flurry Heart asked, eyes widening. “I tried to use your magical map, but it didn’t do what I wanted. It kept showing me Equestria. I didn’t want to see Equestria, I wanted to see the way out! In case… something bad happened, and I had to leave.”
Flurry Heart’s things hadn’t been dumped all over the floor as Lucky’s had been. If she had slept, she’d packed up her blankets after using them.
“I wouldn’t need to understand their language for us to leave.” Though this place would have to let us, she privately added. There was no reason to worry the princess, though. It doesn’t make sense to leave such a nice base like this empty.
But that was an uninformed opinion. At least as far as she could tell, being able to read the language did not mean any further understanding of the builders. Languages did convey subtle clues about those who spoke them. How many colors they had, how they reckoned direction and familiarity and courtesy. But all that would require more time, and maybe someone she could talk to.
Flurry Heart secured her own saddlebags on her back at the same moment Lucky did. The princess had a much easier time of it of course, as she had an easier time with everything. “Dad is gonna be over the moon. Mom might just banish me there. We weren’t supposed to be gone this long.”
Lucky winced as she considered the implications of a missing princess. She could’ve let herself get consumed with worry over it, at the trouble she had certainly caused herself. But she banished those worries, letting them get washed away in the excitement she felt. She was in an alien base, certainly not built by the Equestrians, and she could read everything written in it.
First, she was going to find something to eat. Then she would find a library.
As it turned out, the first was much easier to find than the second. Lucky learned as soon as she stepped outside that they were in a hospital, or at least the equivalent of one. Being able to read the walls granted new insight—the installation appeared to be constructed a bit like an ant colony in that increasingly granular sections branched from thicker ones, and contained any of the rooms related to their function. One could always find their way back to more general sections by monitoring the width of the passages they were in.
They didn’t have to leave the medical area to find something like an eating area—another circular room, though there were no tables or chairs. Only a large bit of pristine machinery in the very center, like a centrifuge with numerous colored tubes flowing into it.
“I hope this isn’t another trap,” Flurry Heart said, keeping her distance from the machine.
“It’s not,” Lucky said, marching straight up to it. As she got close, the lights came on all around it, illuminating the room and each of the different colored tubes flowing into it. “Realistically it’s not a good idea for us to eat anything from here. But I guess we ran out while I was unconscious? If I try to fly back now, I’ll fall out of the sky.”
Plus, she was thinking of returning less and less now that the mysteries of the base were opening to her. If she left now, she might never be able to return! Even with the Alicorn barrier removed—if she’d caused incident in the Crystal Empire, she’d have to run away. Olivia would certainly send explorers now that Lucky could confirm this place was indeed an accessible section of the ring’s infrastructure. But when those explorers came, they would be as clueless as Lucky herself had been upon first entering.
“Food comes out of that?”
Lucky stopped in front of it, and was only a tiny bit startled to see the projection appear in the air above it. In one corner it showed a tiny image of her own body, while the rest was clearly a user interface of some kind. It showed several different food items “selected for optimal pegasus nutrition.”
It was almost like the food kiosks on Earth, right down to scrolling through different dishes with a touch interface. Except no one on Earth knows how to make a hologram like this.
She selected a full-looking salad, pressed “prepare”, then stepped back. Fluids gushed through the transparent pipes, the machine whirred and spun, then chimed, and the side retracted. She smelled it the same second she saw it—fresh vegetables, thick greens. Everything a hungry pegasus needed. There was even a little tray and a plate, made of something like formed cardboard. No utensils, though.
Lucky snatched the food with both wings, as though the machine might change its mind if she waited a moment too long.
“You found a magic salad?” Flurry Heart asked, staring. She was still staring when Lucky Break took the first bite. “Is it going to put your cutie mark back? Give you visions of the future? Help you see changelings?”
It was an enormous test of concentration to think of what Flurry Heart was saying at the same time she was eating. “Optimal pegasus nutrition” apparently also meant optimal taste. It was as satisfying as eating a human food bar while still human. Well, it was like eating a human food bar without the constant, unnatural aftertaste of chemistry.
She pushed the plate towards Flurry Heart, though she’d eaten half of it in just under twenty seconds. “I don’t think it’s magic. But it is good.”
“Felt like magic to me,” Heart said, but she levitated the plate up towards her mouth anyway, taking a tentative bite. Her eyes widened, and she squealed. “Oh, that kinda magic!” She set the plate down, turning towards the machine. “I want one.”
“You saw how I did it?”
Flurry Heart nodded and hurried up to the machine. Lucky watched as she finished her first plate. The writing was different, and the selection of food it offered to Flurry Heart was different. But Lucky was too far away to read it, and too relieved to finally have something to eat to care.
Flurry Heart sat down a few moments later with an identical tray, though instead of a salad hers had a towering multi-layer cake, so large it had barely fit in the machine.
“I thought Princess Celestia was the one with the sweet tooth,” Lucky muttered, licking the last of the salty dressing from her lips.
“I got it to share,” Heart said, sticking her tongue out. “Do you want some or not?”
Lucky did. She probably could’ve got her own, even if she hadn’t seen anything quite like what the princess was eating offered when she’d been there. Besides, like meal bars, it seemed one plate was enough for her to feel mostly full, despite how hungry she’d been before.
As she shared the strange cake, she found the disappearance of her most immediate needs let her think clearly again.
First, she checked her tablet’s calendar. A quick glance told her it was early afternoon two days later.
That explains how you went through all our food. It also meant that Lightning Dust had or very soon would be arriving at home. It meant a princess of Equestria had been gone for two days without a trace.
“Princess, what would your parents think if you were gone for two days? Do you have an excuse to stay gone that long?”
Flurry Heart dropped the spoon, shaking her head vigorously. She spoke with her mouth full. “I’ve ran off for a day or two before. But they can always track me down. Out here… I didn’t tell anypony where I was going, exactly. We were supposed to be back in half that time!”
“Yeah,” She sighed. “We were.” They could leave now. Lucky could order something else, pack it away in her bags for the journey, then turn back towards the Crystal Empire. Then again, they might miss Lightning Dust flying back. They wouldn’t be taking the same path. If Lightning Dust got here, she might wander this base forever.
But if I go, I might not ever come back. Lightning Dust would be furious—rightly so. Going out here alone was one thing, but bringing down the wrath of Equestria on them? What would happen when Flurry Heart came home, and told her parents about this?
“Would it be… much worse if we were gone for a few hours longer?”
“You think there’s more in here to find? More than this?” She pointed at the cake, then at Lucky’s different cutie mark.
“Yeah,” Lucky answered. “I think there’s lots more.” They’d seen a hangar before, with tons of ships and probes docked inside. Exploring that would be interesting, but it wasn’t what she cared about just now. “The first room we went inside, the one with the big map?” She didn’t wait for Flurry Heart’s nod. “I think it was a directory. Of this whole… ruin. I think it would be a shame to come out all this way and not bring back some ancient knowledge, or some cool artifact. We need to find some proof we were here!”
Lucky felt a little guilty—guilty that she was manipulating the princess, guilty that she might make Lightning Dust even more worried about her. But it’s probably safer to let her find us here than it would be to fly back and let her get stuck.
Given how fast her mom could fly, she could probably make the flight in three or four hours. Maybe less, though it was hard to say how long a pegasus could sustain the absurd speeds her mom could achieve when she was really trying. Probably not for twenty-eight kilometers.
“You’re right,” Flurry Heart said, rising to her hooves. She hadn’t finished her cake. “We found a magic spell to read the words. We found a magic food room. But we can’t bring either of those back with us. I need something cool, so Mom and Dad won’t be mad at me. Something that proves it was worth it. Where would we find something like that?”
“Let’s find out.”
It was soon back to wandering. The first thing Lucky did was head straight back to the entrance. There was no sign that anypony else had been there—the fountain only came back on as they approached.
“I thought we weren’t leaving,” Heart muttered, a little disappointed.
“Yeah,” Lucky agreed. “We aren’t. But I want to leave a note, in case someone comes in to rescue us. Since… I can read the signs, but they can’t. They might get lost in here and never find their way out. We have no idea how big this place is.”
“Oh.” Flurry Heart nodded, sitting down to wait. “That makes sense.”
Lucky opened her book, tearing out one of the blank pages in the back and quickly scribbling something with her pencil.
“We’re here, we’re safe. Coming back soon. Brought a map, won’t get lost. But this place is so big, you will. Please wait here for us to come back. We’ll be as quick as we can.”
Lucky removed a stone from one of the empty planter-boxes and used it to weigh down the note so that it was on the ground, directly visible to anypony entering the room from outside. I’m sorry, Lightning Dust, but this is bigger than me. We need to know who built this thing, and why. If I leave now, I might never get to come back. But she didn’t write that part, couldn’t with Flurry Heart looking over her shoulder the whole time.
Her note finally complete, Lucky turned back to the holographic map. It seemed to show the whole ring, though of course only a small part of it was interesting to her just now. “Can you zoom in on Equestria again, Princess, like you did before?”
She did, apparently without effort. “Now, can you move up? It looks like this place is labeled, right up there where the snow starts.”
The image scaled again, this time filling with the image of the massive opening, as though there were no snow or ice covering it.
Lucky now knew why the detailed map of lands north of the Crystal Empire showed a wide flat plain “suitable for a hoofball field.” The station was massive—several kilometers long, and appeared to stretch almost as far as the Crystal Empire itself. It did not go much further north.
Zoomed in, Lucky could read the label “Transit Equus Zero Violet Zero.”
“Good. Now… try to zoom in on where we are right now.” Lucky tapped their location on the map with one wing. Unlike the food projection, it didn’t respond to her touch. I wonder if the ones who built this place use organs like unicorn horns. It would make sense to give their creations the same senses they had. But why make some species better than others?
Alicorns at least were objectively better than the others. Why not make a whole species that way?
“Like this?” Flurry Heart asked. The image zoomed in, and just like Lucky was hoping, was replaced with a detailed map of snaking tunnels. At a glance, it seemed only a small portion of the facility was even accessible. Most of its rooms didn’t even seem connected to the walkways, and were linked only by “Mass Shunts.”
“This looks interesting,” she said, leaning in close to squint at one of the labels. She read it aloud—not in Eoch, but whatever the alien language called “Datamine Transit Zero Violet Zero.”
The map flashed, returning to its previous configuration, startling the princess so much she nearly fell over. Then the floor lit up, exactly as it had before, drawing a pulsating pattern down a different hallway than they’d used last time. “Oh… I see. I guess that’s a good way to get around.” She hurried off a few steps, grinning back at Flurry Heart. “C’mon! I think it’s showing us where to go!”
Flurry Heart did, though her expression had gone suddenly quiet, solemn. They had to do a little flying, a lot of walking, and all the while Flurry Heart was silent. If Lucky had been reading the map right, they had suggested a destination far closer than the last one.
“What did you say before?” the princess asked, entirely unbidden. “When you were reading the map. What language was that? It wasn’t like the one you spoke before.”
Lucky shrugged one shoulder. “I dunno what it’s called. This place… Transit Equus Zero Violet Zero...” She used the new language again. Her mind didn’t want to cooperate—she couldn’t converse in it. But she could read written text aloud. Maybe even compose her own, though she hadn’t tried yet. “It’s the language its builders used. At least I think it is? I don’t know why you’d make a place like this and not use your own language.”
“I’ve, uh… I’ve heard my mom sound like that. When she’s talking to Aunt Celestia, or Twilight. She always said that only Alicorns were supposed to know it. It’s… special?” She frowned, stomping one hoof. “That’s not the right word.”
“Sacred?” Lucky suggested.
“Yeah! Nopony is supposed to know it. It’s sacred.”
Lucky whined. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know it was bad!”
Flurry Heart stopped walking.“It wasn’t your fault, just don’t do it again.”
“I’ll remember,” Lucky said, though she hardly felt any better as she said it. How am I supposed to go without using the language of the station we’re walking around in? Words in that language were very literally written on her body now. If they were really that significant, and one of the princesses even saw her. Which they will, if Flurry Heart tells them about you.
When this is over, I’m gonna have to stay out of Equestria for a while. Lightning Dust said Celestia would be able to find me anywhere. Somehow, she doubted that reach would extend beyond her national borders. What are they calling that new city?
They had arrived—like many of the rooms in this place, its name was written right next to the entrance: “Datamine Transit Zero Violet Zero.” The path of light ended at the door, which slowly slid open as they approached.
It didn’t look like what she had hoped. A “Datamine” made her think of books, computers, something! But there were only chairs in two even rows, a wide glass window on the front that prudently displayed… dark rock and nothing else.
“I don’t see any magic in here,” Flurry Heart said.
Lucky hurried into the room, searching it for any sign of whatever a “Datamine” was. There was a single flat piece of glass near the front window, maybe that was a screen? “There must be something,” she said. “Maybe it’s hidden?”
“Oh, that’s a good idea!” Flurry Heart stepped inside, and the door shut behind her. There was no reason to panic about this—doors had been doing that every time they approached them. Lucky still hadn’t figured out why so much of this base had airlocks.
Flurry Heart started ripping up seats, as though whatever they were looking for might be hiding under a cushion. As she approached it, the little glass panel lit up, projecting an image in the air at the front of the room. “Please recline. Acceleration in 25 seconds.”
“Uh… Princess?” Lucky hurried over to the back of the room, climbing into the next seat so Flurry Heart couldn’t rip it away. As she did so, the cushion sunk around her body, molding itself around her. She could feel fluid just under the strange fabric.
“It’s a trap!” Flurry Heart’s horn lit up, and she glared at the seat Lucky was in. It ripped out of the wall right along with Lucky herself. No sooner was it disconnected than it released her, the cool fluid and molding gone.
One glance up at the front told her the time had changed. They had fifteen seconds. “It isn’t a trap!” she called, yanking Flurry Heart along with all the strength she had. The princess was so taken aback she didn’t resist, as Lucky tugged her to the undamaged first row of seats. “Sit down, Princess! Right now!”
Five seconds.
Lucky sat down again, and was unsurprised when this seat grabbed her, straightening a little as it embraced every part of her body. Even the saddlebags. “Princess, you have to trust me. It says we need to sit down.”
For a second, it looked like the Alicorn might keep arguing. Then she shrugged, hopping into the seat beside Lucky, looking skeptical. “Alright Lucky. But if you’re doing this just to make the story more—”
The words were strangled in her throat as the room blasted forward. Half a dozen orphan chairs smashed into the back of the room, and she became suddenly grateful that she wasn’t sitting back there. These chairs didn’t look light.
The world turned gray, faded from the edges of her vision as Lucky was pressed into the seat. She could still make out the suggestion of words where the launch warning had been. “Patience suggested during acceleration. Current rate: 4.35 g.”
“Gravitational acceleration warning,” her helmet said, in an even English voice. “The Pioneering Society recommends no more than 30 m/s2 acceleration for sustained periods. Please reduce acceleration or risk injury.”
A little late for that. Lucky had felt forced like this during her aerial maneuvers, though only for a split second at a time. This kept going, kept going until she could barely see at all, couldn’t read the suggestion that they should remain in their seats.
She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there. She couldn’t hear anything other than the sound of their vehicle, rumbling along towards… something.
A pleasant chime filled the room, almost like the one that had sounded when her food was ready. The force pressing her into her seat gradually leveled out. The seat stopped holding her, and her body was finally able to relax.
Outside was a blur of motion—dark tunnels with an occasional flash of light overhead. She felt the occasional stutter of their little vehicle as they moved forward through the dark, about as much as she might’ve felt on a maglev back home.
“We stopped?” Flurry Heart asked, glancing towards the back of the room. The chairs had been held against the back wall as they accelerated, but now they lay on the floor in a pile.
“No,” Lucky said, making her way towards the front of the room, looking out at the blurring passages beyond. She couldn’t even guess at how fast they might be moving. The screen didn’t tell her, though it did say “Two hours until arrival at central Datamine.”
“We’re moving really, really fast.” She pointed out the window again. “I don’t know where we’re going, but it must be far away.”
“Faster than a flying carriage? Faster than a train?”
“Yeah.” Lucky grinned despite herself. “I think it’s a little faster than a train.”
“But… where are we going? We can’t still be inside the temple, right?”
Lucky sighed, sitting down on her haunches again. She would have to be attentive for any sounds, particularly as the time started to run out. She wouldn’t want to be out of her seat while this thing decelerated. “I think it’s time for me to explain something to you, Flurry Heart. About Equestria.”
“I already saw it wasn’t flat,” Flurry Heart said. “I’ve heard ponies say that before. Aunt Twilight… she said that. But I didn’t know what it meant until I looked at the map.”
Lucky tapped the screen a few times, bringing up the satellite render that someone named Martin had sent to her. “I have a map just like that—see?” She held it up.
Flurry Heart nodded. “Okay. So what? Does it matter that Equestria isn’t flat?”
Lucky took a breath, looking away from the princess. She wasn’t sure how the pony would react to this. This whole adventure is probably going way above my head. Real explorers should be doing this. But Lucky had learned their language! She’d navigated them this far safely, and now they were apparently headed for the “Datamine.”
“Someone built it. Equus, I mean. The reason I’m doing all this exploring is to try to find them. Who they were, why they put it here. I’m hoping we can find those answers.”
“I thought Celestia made it.”
Lucky shook her head. “There are stories about life before Celestia, remember? The whole Hearth’s Warming Eve thing? Clover the Clever, Puddinghead…”
“Oh.” Pause. “Must’ve been another princess before her. They move the sun and moon around. They could probably make rings too.”
Lucky was still looking away. Adventure had made her a little closer to the princess, eroded some of the barrier of courtesy between them. But how much could she get away with? Not violating their religion, apparently. And so much of how they acted around royalty seemed like religion.
“Do you feel like you could make a ring, Princess?”
Flurry Heart glared at a random spot, horn glowing. Then she stuck her tongue out, folding her forelegs together. “N-no.”
“Yeah.” Lucky sighed. “Whoever they were, they were powerful. Powerful enough to build the whole world you live on. Before coming here, the biggest space station I ever saw was four kilometers. Atlantis Platform. They had to tear up whole asteroids just to…” She trailed off, realizing that what she was saying both made no sense and shouldn’t be said around the princess.
“S-sorry. I just hope we can find the answers out here. Do you think the other princesses would want them?”
Pause. Flurry Heart didn’t answer for several minutes. Eventually she said, “Aunt Twilight would. She’s always trying to learn new things. The rest… probably not. Mom would love the food magic, though. We should try to bring that back.”
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Food magic is best magic.
Happy 100k words!
Next update will be interesting. So what will the datamine show? Pictures of the builders?
I wonder if the ring somehow KNEW that Lucky would need to know how to play music to get close to the only Alicorn who would be willing to help her, thus her non language cutie mark? Then when she did what she needed to do to get there she got her language cutie mark. I shudder to think how smart these Makers are.
They're travelling a long way. I wonder if it'll take Lucky out of the Pegasus zone, and what it'll do to her magic?
Heh, wouldn't it be funny if the humans build the thing? As in, they discovered "magic"/FTL/whatever while the probe just flew through space?
Welp, they're gonna be crushed by all those ripped seats when they'll start decelerating. Unless Flurry magically bolt them down, or shield them, or something.
Dang. And I thought the Fallout games had impressive preservatives. Of course, when it's the basic compounds that comprise food in hermetically sealed containers, they'll have a pretty decent shelf life.
In any case, Lucky's jailbroken her cutie mark. It'll be truly fascinating to see what the datamine has to offer. And how much of that information the princesses alreqdy know. (Though I wouldn't be surprised if they were deliberately leaving Twilight out of the loop.)
the optimal alicorn food is a giant cake!
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An interesting possibility. If that's the case then it would stand to reason that the ring's AI, or whatever the presence is, wants the ponies to remember their true history. And that the original 3 alicorns have thus far been complacent in hiding it. Twilight obviously is not, and wants that history uncovered, but believes it would be too dangerous for her to do it personally because she's being watched for such behavior due to her inquisitive nature.
Flurry Heart on the other hand knows nothing of the ring's true history or she was never taught to try and cover it up, thus she'd be the only one who could/would get LB through that door.
The real question now is, how will the other alicorns react to the news of this underground facility upon LB and FH's return.
My money's on Celestia, Luna, and maybe even Cadence trying to imprison or banish LB while FH will get an education on why the true history is being covered up.
8429859
If whatever vehicle they're in uses a normal, single-vector drive (i.e. a rocket, or anything designed by humans), it will just spin around 180 degrees and fire its engine again to decelerate. In which case the chairs will be pressed to the back of the room and anyone sitting in them would experience the same g-forces as during the acceleration period.
Optimal alicorn nutrition produces layer cake. So alicorns run on sugar, more so than other ponies. Ponies must metabolise sugar with extreme efficiency. Also interesting the "originator" language has become a secret princess language. I still down Celestial and Luna know the truth, but may have been told NOT to look for it with some vague threat about "the end of equestrian", assuming it meant the Apocalypse when really it would mean more dissolution of the country.
8429760
But what does it tell of the nature of ponies if some magic is just giving them abilities?
This is most likely Lucky's true talent, but the fact that she was given a musician talent raises concerns. Lightning Dust is probably going to flip when she sees that Lucky's mark has changed.
Ok this is super interesting and brings forth a hole bunch of questions.
the next 4 or 5 up dates are going to be interesting at the lest.
8429786
That's the most likely scenario, yes.
Did she lose her ability to play guitar is an important question. Playing the guitar would have been one of the first things I would have done as James. The university would CRAVE her now with that cutie mark.
She is doing EXACTLY what Olivia would most not want her to do. I mean she is essentially bringing the builders into the equation where they might have escaped unnoticed without her meddling. She is also messing with the basic structure of the whole Equus society.
It turns out that Alicorn needs more and more Calorie than normal pony needs.
That also explain why Flurry Heart ate all of food before Lucky Break wake.
And that is why the machine suggests cake to Flurry Heart
I wonder if it could make Lucky into an alicorn if it wanted. Plus it is probably really good that the ship didn't get a hold of an alicorn in the first place, although I wonder if the ship would be able to make alicorn biosleeves even if it had a Flurry Heart sample.
8429907
Or it means that alicorns just plain burn a ton more calories than ordinary ponies, and thus need, well, junk food on top of a normal micronutrient balance.
8429877
Flurry Heart still acts like a taboo has been broken when Lucky speaks Alicornic.
8430010
My head cannon is still Celly and Luna's parents gave the princesses to the founders of Equestrian with little specific info, thus why they knew nothing of how alicorns are born.
8429760
I prefer the theory mentioned previously that music is just another language. Perhaps a universal one even.
So the alicorns speak the language of the Builders but it's supposed to be kept secret as it's sacred... Okay, this confirms for me that the alicorns are the beings put in charge of making sure The Great Plan of the Builders is fulfilled - they are the overseers. Naturally, it all went to hell sometime long ago (can't imagine Nightmare Moon was a necessary step) and now the human presence is making it go even more off track. It kinda makes sense that more alicorns will start cropping up (Cadence, "fixed" Luna, Twilight, Flurry Heart...) in the period where serious corrections are needed.
Things will get a lot more heated up when the alicorns fail to set things right on time and other, more drastic, contingency plans of the Builders are activated. They might even assume direct control
Having her cutie mark changed was a great way to move forward. Now they are going to maybe the main central of the ring I hope the next few chapters are just they're adventures in the ring.
Also, Atlantis existed???
‘Probably not for twenty-eight kilometers.’
...ok this needs some math to show the absurdity: Dash could reach the edge of Mach 1 (about 1200kph) at the start of the show, we shall assume LD is only as fast as RD was back then. That was a nose dive so assume her top level-flight speed is half that (although it should probably be more) and that her cruising speed (jogging) is half her sprint. This gives us a cruising speed of 300kph. At that speed covering 28km should take about 6 minutes.
As to the transit system that will take two hours to reach its destination after accelerating at 4G. I can only assume the destination is well beyond Equestria, and or on the other side of the ‘ring. They will travel thousand, possibly hundreds of thousands of kilometers in that time, depending on how long they accelerated.
Of course if Lucky wanted to go to ground, and change names, the change in cutie mark would make for a perfect disguise assuming Flurry Heart was on board.
Also note that piece of paper that says Lucky can be a junior wonderbolt isn't worth the paper it is written on with the change of cutie mark.
8429974
Actually, dumb it of math on that. Assume any one style of pony magic has a caloric requirement, so for total energy needs you take b + m (body plus magic). Then alicorns are "three-in-ones" with all the kinds of magic. So their need is b+3m. Well if the body component is anything like a horse of their size should need (or at least, seemingly pretty comparable to humans of their age), then yeah, we're easily talking about an alicorn burning at least half again as much in a day as a normal pony. That's under the conservative assumption that magic takes 25% or less of a typical pony's energy needs. If it's more, holy hell alicorns are energy hogs.
Well, damn. Twilight did tell her not to tell anyone. Now that she knows the alicorns know that language, it becomes clear that Twilight knows of it and wanted someone else to know too. I guess she doesn't like Celestia's policy of keeping the truth hidden.
Ooooh, stuff's happening! The Ringbuilders mind-hacked their way into giving Lucky their language, and now they're going somewhere REALLY far. Given how colossal the ring is, I can only imagine.
I eagerly await the next chapter!
8430041
Science!
At a constant acceleration of 4.35g's, for x amount of time will result in y maximum speed, and z distance travelled in 2 hours.
15 seconds = 1,431 mph = 2,861 miles
20 seconds = 1,908 mph = 3,816 miles
30 seconds = 2,862 mph = 5,724 miles
45 seconds = 4,294 mph = 8,588 miles
2 minutes = 11,451 mph = 22,902 miles
The suspense is palpable. I'm on the edge of my seat. I can hardly wait to see what comes next.
8429760
I was wondering whether the probe found the ringworld on its own, or if the ringworld caught it.
ominous.
8430317
The funny thing is, if the Ringbuilders and their own language really do use pony-style coordinates, in which "Violet" and "Sugar" can be section descriptors, then I really don't think they're any more hostile than the Equestrians themselves. These aren't hostile xenos, these are more like extraordinarily powerful gardeners. They made the whole place with an intended aesthetic, viz: basically how Equestria ended up.
8430041 This assumes that a Sonic Rainboom is caused by breaking the sound barrier, which has honestly always been kind of ludicrous.
It's far more likely, given the way they're portrayed, that Rainbooms are actually caused by breaking the magic barrier. So Rainbow Dash can fly faster than the speed of magic, but we don't necessarily know what that speed is.
8430474
This is the school of thought I'm writing to here. If you're looking for pegasus flight speeds, check those realistic for birds to maintain over distance. That's going to give you what a pegasus will reach.
8430118
What are the odds Twilight can guess that Flurry's disappearance is related to her note to Lucky?
Because if Twilight makes that connection, and gets her hooves on Lightning Dust, "team human" might not be secret for much longer.
8430632
Considering Twilight alone, they'd be good. But Flurry having history in being rebellious and disappearing, plus the always present villain of the week, make that logic jump rather unlikely. After all, she doesn't know who lucky is, only that a filly from the frozen north raised questions she wants ponies to ask (we believe).
8430390
"Oh dear," Blossom Wall murmured to herself. "I'm going to have to do some weeding."
And at the destination, they encounter a caretaker zebra named Zathras... and his brothers.
8429879
Unless it's some kind of mag-rail system and only the chairs turn around for the deceleration phase...
Yeah, they should probably secure those loose seats, just in case.
After listening to Flurry talk about these high tec mechanics feeling or seemingly like Magic to her I have to wonder if pony kinds magic is just technology and not a force? Like... to them they think the tec is magic when it isn't but that magic might actually be just a power source for them and the Ringworld.
Also dear author please don't make Equestria the only place left on the RingWorld because you can sure explore a lot with different places. Also we'll see how EG works?
So that thing fixed her Cutie Mark, making it represent the actual pony, rather than the biosleeve? Good thing she's a linguist, or we'd be screwed.
8430317
Or... Possible, and I'm going out on a limb here... A possibly very annoying spoiler guess.
The probe could have been here scince it was last active... A trillion years ago. We don't know how much time has passed after all.
8431104
I'm with you
Vacuum tube and the capsule is powered by electromagnetics could probably get going that fast. Rockets would use to much fuel too actually get there (also exhaust is gonna be a problem) , also they're most likely going though a curve because of the ring shape and a rocket going that fast would break out of orbit right?
8430474
A hollow argument. Even ignoring the sonic rainboom itself the speed that Dash and other pegasi are shown to possess make a mockery of travel times.
8430506
Even if you nerf pagasi to RL bird speed it doesn’t improve matters much. The faster types can make 150kph flying level. Migratory birds range from as low as 40kph to 90kph.
Whichever way you do it 28 kilometres is not a significant distance for an athletic pagasus.
8431552
I think you're forgetting the most important detail of all about the text: Those are Lucky Break's thoughts. Luck Break has inherited human memories and a human way of thinking from birth. Yes, her adoptive mother is a very strong flier who at the speeds of a typical long-distance flier could probably make the trip in an hour or so. Baring, of course, the fact that pegasus flight relies on magical effects (at least according to the explanations LD herself has given thus far). How quickly a heavy creature like a pegasus might be able to fly, when also using their scant magic to fight two or even three times earth gravity, is not as easy as a simple comparison to Earth birds. As Earth doesn't use rapid motion to unevenly counterbalance an enormous attractive force from a nearby star that would crush all living things to pulp if not present, our world is barreft of perfect comparisons.
But that is not likely to be the way Lucky evaluates the trip--one she recently made (in terms of her memory, anyway). A path that was probably meandering, through well below freezing conditions where the power of her flight magic was increasingly strained by gravitational effects. She lacks the experience to objectively evaluate how difficult that trip might take--and she's like many other young people, unable to externalize the experiences of others who are fundamentally differently qualified than herself. When making an estimate, she's quite likely to use her own feeble abilities as the yardstick.
She remembers an enormously difficult trip and guesses it must take her guardian similar difficulty, even though she herself was the reason for the delay the first time LD made the journey. It's as simple as that.
Now if there's a place in the chapter where the narrative objectively stated that it took Lighting Dust "four hours" or some similar length of time to make the flight, then there's an error I need to correct. But correcting the characters, particularly one who hasn't been a pony for life and lacks their intuitive sense for pony things, is probably not a terribly interesting avenue to explore.
@Starscribe
You are right about the gravity increase near the edges of the ringworld. I imagined a ringworld that was perpendicularly flat, like Niven's ringworld. But then I realized that the reverse ringworld should have a much more complex shape because in case of a perpendicularly flat ringworld, the gravity of the star near the edges would be lower than on the "equator" and the centrifugal force would be the same!
So the ringworld should be perpendicularly convex. In this case, the gravity on the surface would be uniform but the centrifugal force counteracting it would be smaller, especially near the uninhabited edges. Of course, there is a shape that would perfectly balance those two forces on the entire surface of the ringworld.
But the constructors may choose another shape, simply to deter inhabitants from climbing the "mountains" at the edge.
oh mai gawd. (Did anyone see the rocket? I mean they're pretty loud)
8431302
I had read a fiction talk about magic is coming from nano tech robot.
Equestria creature can control those nano robot to do something that Equestria creatures think those things are magic.
And Starswirl is a old male human in that story.
Well this is certainly leading to something VERY big,.....and EXPLOSIVE probably too!!! Lol