The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

A Lesson In Harmony

"So let me think," Slipstream said, talking as she walked with Jamjars and Glimmer down the railroad painstakingly built through the hilly country. "In order for us to fly anywhere, we have to first find somewhere we want to fly, and then get the ship in the air. We might find something while scouting, but Saffron crossed the mountains around here, so she would know the area better than any of us. So we need her to wake up. Then we also need to fix the ship, which means Shinespark wakes up and either fixes her horn or teaches Grenada to do it for her..."

"The ship isn't broken," Glimmer replied. "We put it through a lot of stress, but Shinespark and Arambai did good work. The problem is it's out of power."

Slipstream scratched her head with a feather. "But we just got more fuel a few days ago. One of those windigo hearts got us almost all the way from Ironridge to the Empire, and then three of them gave us a month in Mistvale, another month of cruising around with the restaurant, and then that speedy flight to Izvaldi. We have what, five hearts? And pushing the ship to the max for a day only takes one..."

"Most of the power was used by Aegis, not the ship." Glimmer shook her head. "Lasers that big don't come cheap, and she had to fire twice."

Jamjars was too busy playing balance beam with the rails to pay full attention. "Someday, I'm going to learn to shoot lasers with my horn," she declared.

Slipstream was curious, though. "How does that work?"

"Aegis?" Glimmer's ears swiveled, the even spacing of the rail slats letting her walk confidently even while blind.

Slipstream nodded, grinning. "Try me. See how well I can understand."

"Well..." Glimmer took a breath. "How much do you know about how Braen worked?"

Slipstream bit her lip. "I've picked up a little. It was a suit of armor that Shinespark somehow remote-controlled, and if you put in moon glass with a cutie mark, it could act as a body, like for Nyala."

"I meant from a power standpoint, but okay." Glimmer nodded. "Braen converts energy from a pony's cutie mark into conventional mana power in order to function. That cutie mark energy is harmony, which is fundamentally the same as the energy stored in the windigo hearts. It's an ambient energy constantly produced by ponies and all harmonic life forms. Following so far?"

Slipstream nodded. "And what about ponies without marks?"

"That's more complicated, but the short answer is they produce it too." Glimmer shook her head. "Anyway, some cutie marks are more 'harmonic' than others, usually on a scale of twice as powerful to half as powerful as average... though there are extreme cases, like Shinespark's."

Slipstream perked her ears, listening.

"Shinespark's is about fifty times as powerful as average," Glimmer continued. "That's incredibly unusual, but as you can see, it happened. And what that means in this context is that she can passively provide enough mana power for Braen to walk around, speak, and fight once or twice a day. Braen has rechargeable batteries for situations like that."

"So this is relating to your dragon," Slipstream said. "Braen is a similar thing to her?"

Glimmer considered this. "There are some differences. First, harmony is much more than just mana energy. It's a power that fights entropy and re-orders reality according to someone's wishes. This is why ponies like to build and create things, how unicorn horns function, how pegasi can fly despite the small size of their wings... Braen using it to create mana power to run a machine is creative, but like taking a greater form of energy and converting it to a lesser one. Aegis is like Braen in that she is a machine designed to operate on a pony's harmony magic, but she incorporates a full harmony extractor like the one that powers this airship instead of merely reducing it to mana power. In the same way that the ship's extractor lets it use stored harmony to replicate pegasus magic and fly, Aegis's allows her to use her energy in a host of ways, and with incredibly high theoretical throughput. Are you still following?"

Slipstream frowned. "...Maybe. Basically, your dragon uses harmony like Garsheeva's power generator, but flies and shoots lasers instead of generating normal power."

Glimmer nodded. "And teleports, and shields, and many other things. She was able to amplify the ship's thrust for our ascent up the mountains." She flicked her tail. "Are you seeing the problem?"

"If Shinespark's cutie mark is incredibly rare, and the energy it produces is only enough for Braen to walk around and pretend to be a real pony, then there's no one who can actually power your dragon enough to make use of its potential?" Slipstream hopefully guessed.

"Good guess," Glimmer praised. "This ship's harmony extractor was the work of two novice inventors researching an unusually strong mark, with some help from a career scientist from Yakyakistan, and it managed to survive an overload that killed a significant number of windigoes. Aegis is a remnant of a forgotten time, built with incredible knowledge and effort to be the most powerful weapon in the world. At maximum capacity, she could..." She lowered her head. "Well, you can see how powering her adequately is difficult. But yes. To bring a long story to a close, that is how we lost our harmony reserves so quickly."

Slipstream quirked an eyebrow, but didn't question what it was Aegis would be capable of. Probably destroying the world, or something. "And something this powerful is yours? How did you get her?"

"...I don't like talking about it," Glimmer apologized, and left it at that.

Slipstream hummed, fishing for a good way to change the subject without being awkward. But before she could come up with anything, from up ahead, Jamjars called, "Look! It's the ocean!"

The pegasus quickened her trot, rounding a hill corner and stepping onto another bridge crossing the mouth of a river. Jamjars was standing at the edge, mane blowing, staring into the horizon.

"Wow," Slipstream whispered, her own mane starting to blow now that she was exposed to the ocean wind as well. The hills fell away into sand dunes, and only a short few hummocks away was blue, easy to see down the mouth of the wide river they were standing over. It was impossibly different from the other two beaches she had seen, covered in waves of sand and carrying a salty, rotting-plant smell that was pungent and somehow nasty and refreshing at the same time. There were no crafted stone walls and endless rows of docks, no steep stone beaches made of rocks the size of her hoof. And strangest of all, an incessant cawing filled her ears, hundreds of gulls wheeling or strutting on the sand, all looking beadily at the three ponies.

"...What's with all the birds?" Jamjars asked, tilting her head.

An ominous splat sounded beside her as one of the flying gulls tried to bomb her with a special delivery and missed.

Jamjars glanced fearfully at the mess, than glared at the gulls and shook a hoof. "If you mess with me, I will learn that laser spell today just for revenge!"

A chorus of cawing was all the reply she would get.

Comments

[Phoenix Kitten]

Why would it not surprise me to learn that Jamjars saw the writing on the wall when Starlight started to go a little nuts, and bailed, and is still out there somewhere.
...perhaps I'm onto something there, maybe they all noticed that Starlight was getting a bit.. tyrannical.. as time went on, and they all retreated back to the Dream, and either live in the grounded ship, or fixed it and took off back over the mountain.

[Boopers]

Seagulls?
Hmmm, stop it now!

[Boopers]

9808317
What writing on the wall? Did I miss something or is that just a saying?

[Phoenix Kitten]

9809089
It's a saying.
Usually used in a negative connotation to mean something is about to end.

[Hap]

9809089
9809522

Mene, mene, tekel upharsin.

You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting.