On Getting to the Bottom of this "Equestrian" Business

by McPoodle

Chapter 12: Let the Science Begin!

Chapter 12: Let the Science Begin!

At a small home in Canterlot, a family dinner was interrupted by a round of furious knocking at the front door.

The matriarch of the family, Thorned Rose, answered the door, nose in the air and eyes closed. “I’m sorry,” she began, “but we are simply not available until after we have completed our ritual of breaking bread together.” Then she opened her eyes, and instantly fell to her knees. “Oh, I am dreadfully sorry, Celestia. You know of course that that was just a joke, yes? One that definitely doesn’t apply to you.”

“An innocent misunderstanding,” said Celestia with a smile. “May I speak with your daughter?”

“Of course…Yellow, get your butt over here right now! She’ll be along any moment now.”

“Gods, you don’t have to yell, Mo—oh hi, Celestia! What brings you here? Not that you aren’t welcome to show up at any time—”

“Day or night!” Thorned Rose helpfully added.

A dismissive glance from Celestia caused her to retreat back into the house, metaphorical tail between her legs.

Yellow Rose was a tall thin girl, yellow skinned and orange haired, with said hair styled in a vague cloud style that could be said to resemble a rose only if you were far-sighted and had lost your glasses. She was wearing a stiff white dress with starched collars, and matching white stockings and penny-loafers.

“I came to invite you to my sister’s birthday party this Sunday,” Celestia said, handing over an elaborate card, one of a set of one hundred that the local print shop had run up for her free of charge ten minutes after they were supposed to have closed for the day.

Yellow Rose took the card without looking. “Oh right, your sister—I remember her. I’ll get her something goth-y. Or would you prefer if I got her a music box to replace the one you said you wanted?”

Celestia shook her head angrily. “What? No, get a present for her, something she’d actually like, not a present that you expect me to steal. What do you take me for?”

“Well, that’s what you told me to do last year,” Yellow said in a small voice. She instantly regretted saying it.

“Well…I…but…that was last year. This year is special. This year we’re actually making her happy.”

“Well alright, I’ll try, but it won’t be easy,” Yellow said, shuffling one shoe on the carpet. “I don’t really have anything in common with your sister. None of your friends do.”

“Yes, I know,” Celestia said, looking away. “I don’t suppose you know if Luna has any friends I could invite?”

“Who?” Yellow asked, bewildered. Then she looked down at the card. “Oh, is that her name? No, I don’t think she has any friends. She’s kinda creepy.”

“Yes, I know,” Celestia said with a sigh, then turned on her heel and made her way down the porch steps and towards the street. “Get her…an astronomy book. I know she has one already, but it’s old. Get her a new one. And use dark wrapping paper—not the stuff you use around me.” She turned to face the other girl. “This Sunday has to go perfectly. I need you to ignore all of my sister’s weirdness and help her have fun for one afternoon. It’s really important to me. And I swear I’ll make it up to you.”

“Um…OK. See you then, Celestia!”

“Sure,” Celestia said with a wave of her hand, before stalking off towards the next house on her mental list.

Yellow stood at the doorway, her eyes fixed on the retreating form of Celestia, until the girl had turned a corner. Then she sighed happily for getting attention, any kind of attention, from the great and powerful Celestia. She looked down at the card, rubbing it gently.

“Anything you say, Celestia,” she whispered to herself, before slowly closing the door.

---

Celestia entered the Delver townhouse a couple hours later, heading straight to the refrigerator to make herself a sandwich from the leftovers of his dinner. She ate with a scowl on her face. Grabbing a notepad, she started making notes concerning who she had coerced into attending Luna’s party, and her utter inability to find anybody who would admit to being her friend independent of being Celestia’s friend.

Gradually it dawned on her that there was a conversation going on in the living room, and one of the speakers was Pr. Guiseman. On realizing this, Celestia got up, cleaned up her plate and her face, and joined the others.

She found Delver, Gnosi, Meridiem and Gus engaged in a game of Risk.

“Good evening,” she said.

The four of them looked at her.

“You missed dinner,” Delver said with a disappointed tone. “We waited as long as possible.”

“Sorry, something came up,” Celestia said. “I completely forgot to send out invitations for Luna’s birthday, and I figured waiting until tomorrow would inconvenience the guests trying to buy presents beforehand.”

Delver sighed. “Yes, I suppose that is acceptable, but why didn’t you tell me?”

“I got caught up in the moment,” Celestia said, with a helpless shrug.

Delver gave her a disappointed look for a few moments until turning back to the board. “Well I hope you found something to eat.”

“I did. Pr. Guiseman has a hotel room to stay in, right?”

“That’s right,” said Gus, picking up a thick orange beverage and taking a sip. “I’ve got my things already there, and I’ll head back after this game. I wouldn’t want to interrupt your privacy.”

“Oh, it’s no bother,” said Celestia. “In fact, I was wondering: is there a particular reason why your family hasn’t joined you in Canterlot?”

“My family?” Gus looked over at Delver. “I didn’t think that was allowed.”

Delver rubbed his chin. “Well to be honest, I didn’t even think of it. Assuming you keep your work confined to the lab, and hold to the NDA, I don’t see any reason not to have them visit.”

“Excellent!” Celestia exclaimed, picking up a nearby phone and shoving it into Gus’ hands. “Why don’t you call them up right now, and then I can arrange the plane tickets. They can be here by this time tomorrow!”

“Tomorrow?” Gus asked.

“Just in time for Luna’s birthday! You’ve got kids, right?”

“Well yes,” Gus said reluctantly. “But they’re several years older than Luna.”

Celestia looked way, cursing inwardly, before regaining control of her emotions. “Well, I didn’t mean to pressure you or anything.” She took in a deep breath and let it out. “I was sincere, however, in my wish that you not be unnecessarily separated from your family. You’re doing a great thing for us, and for Markism in general, so I think it’s only right.”

“Well…” Gus said, considering the offer. “This is a good time for them to get out of town for a week or two, and we haven’t been on a vacation together in years, so sure, I’ll make that call.” He took another sip of his drink before picking up the phone.

“Great!” Celestia exclaimed.

A few minutes later, Gus confirmed that his family was interested in a week-long visit. Celestia then grabbed the phone and called Round Trip, owner of the Canterlot travel agency, getting him to book airline and bus tickets to get the family in and out of town, and finally the Canterlot Inn, to book the necessary room on the same floor that Gus was staying in.

“You know, you don’t have to call everybody at night to get what you want,” Delver said.

“Yeah, but they’re always so very happy to help me, no matter what the hour is,” Celestia countered.

Delver only rolled his eyes.

“Well, with that settled, I guess I’ll go to bed now. Goodnight, Father, Meridiem, Gnosi. And Pr. Guiseman.”

“Goodnight,” the four others chorused.

Celestia went up the stairs to the second floor, passed by Luna on the way down. Neither said a word to the other.

“I’m going out to check on the bat colony at Grover Street,” Luna announced. She was gone before anyone had a chance to comment.

A belated Celestia rushed out of her room and to the top of the stairs. “Have fun!” she called out too late to be heard. Then she shook her head and returned to her room.

Gus looked up to the second floor, and then over to the door that Luna had just vacated. “I didn’t want to say anything while either one of them was in the room, but I take it that you’re their legal guardian,” he said.

“Yes,” said Delver. “Their birth parents died in a car accident on the way back from the hospital after Luna’s birth. Neither one of the girls remember them. I like to believe I have a relationship like Atticus Finch has with his children in To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“So it was your decision to tell Celestia from an early age that she ran the Markist religion?”

“Yes.”

“And have you regretted it yet?”

“On a near daily basis.”

---

June 22, 1985.

Zero minus 6 days.

Gus had been told that the lab Delver’s students were using for their experiments was located in the basement of the Markist church, and the church was within walking distance of the hotel, as was “most anyplace worth going downtown”, as the bellhop put it.

Gus stopped, puzzled, as he walked out of the hotel lobby and into the sunlight. Something seemed off about the light. He felt like he was in the middle of a solar eclipse, except for the fact the sun shone in the sky unobstructed. After a few moments, he decided to pass it off as another new side-effect to his regimen of medication, like the doozy his intestines has put him through the night before.

Before he knew it, he had reached his destination. The church was a long tall building, painted in a bright red and gleaming white and decorated with gold leaf along the eaves. Abstract paintings composed of stained glass could be found along the upper story, and the roof was mostly a skylight. Rather appropriate, Gus decided, considering that it was built to honor a sun goddess. And as for the shape and color, well it was a gigantic stable, but with the same relationship to a common stable as a fairy-tale castle has to a peasant’s hovel. Next to the building was what at first glance appeared to be a greenhouse, except that the walls were made of green-painted siding instead of glass. It looked tall enough to house a full-sized tree or two. And next to the pseudo-greenhouse was a miniature electrical power station. Gus could only assume that it was for the use of the lab.

Meridiem was waiting for him just inside the main building. “I hope you slept well,” she said.

Gus shrugged. “I won’t let one bad night’s sleep stop me from finally seeing some physical proof that everything you’ve been telling me over the past three days isn’t built on a house of cards. Where’s the Bishop?”

Meridiem gestured towards a back room. “He’s catching up on everything he’s missed while he was gone. Oh, and he’s also putting together his presentation for the Markist Historical Society of England. A group of us will be flying out to London next week. We, uh, didn’t anticipate you showing up, and he really can’t back out this close to the date of the conference.”

“Oh don’t worry about that,” Gus assured her. “I’ll have my family here, after all, so I’d probably want to entertain them while they’re here instead of working.”

“Good idea. I’ll write up a list of places to see before we leave. Now if you would follow me…”

& & &

The majority of the basement was separated into two rooms by a partition that included plenty of windows. The smaller room had plenty of desk space for writing; a couple of A/V carts each holding a television and a VCR, to monitor videos; an Apple Macintosh home computer with a whopping 512 kilobytes of RAM, for documenting the experiments; and finally a whiteboard, for working out ideas. The larger room was mostly empty.

Gnosi Augur was waiting for Gus in the smaller room, in front of one of A/V carts. Gus sat down beside him in another chair.

“I’ll double-check the equipment,” Meridiem said as she opened the door at one end of the partition. “I’ve seen the stuff he’s going to show you too many times to count.”

“Alright, walk me through what you’ve done so far,” said Gus.

“The question I set out to answer was what precisely was happening during the Marking ceremony,” Gnosi began. “The traditional explanation was a spiritual link between the two counterparts. I was forbidden from performing the ceremony with anyone who wasn’t ready for their mark, which was to keep from antagonizing the Princess. So I set up all kinds of monitoring equipment to see if I could catch anything interesting. Almost immediately, I detected some temperature fluctuations, so I asked Celestia to get me a thermal imaging camera. It was a few months before I had an opportunity to use it, but when I did, this was the result.”

Gnosi depressed the play button on the unit, and a false-color image appeared on the screen, which he immediately paused. “At first, I had tried to heat up the plaques, because I was looking for temperatures slightly below room temperature, but they just soaked up the heat like a sponge. So instead I stored them in the liquid nitrogen I was using to cool the camera.” He pointed to the purplish-black circle on one side of the screen. “The point was to get a good contrast against the phenomenon I was looking for.” He un-paused the video. “This is in slow motion. A bed was assembled in the test chamber and the subject was allowed to go to sleep naturally—I didn’t want to use hay smoke because that would mean I’d have to be wearing breathing apparatus. The worst that could happen is that the ceremony would fail, in which case I would have to repeat the process with a gas mask, but luckily it worked once I stacked three plates together.”

The moment the slowly-moving white hand of the subject was touched to the stack of plaques, two things happened: First, the color of the top-most plaque rapidly changed color as it absorbed heat from the hand. And secondly, a thick gray vapor entered the screen from the upper right corner and was sucked into the plate under the hand. The timestamps in the corner of the screen suddenly started incrementing faster.

“I’ve got the full film with everything in slow motion,” Gnosi explained. “This is the version I plan to use for presentations—assuming I’m ever allowed to make a presentation. Suffice it say that 38 seconds passed.”

After a few seconds, the timestamps dropped back into slow motion as the gray mist emerged from out of the plaque, and exited the screen in the same direction it came from. “And that was the moment when the subject woke up. During this time, the top plaque changed colors and displayed the subject’s mark, but that doesn’t show up in thermal.” The film ended, and Gnosi stopped the player.

“I can assure you that neither I nor the subject was breathing in the direction of the plate or the camera, and the video camera I had set up showed nothing where that gray shape is in the thermal video. Eventually I had the chance to repeat the experiment, and this time I made sure to position the camera to include more of the subject.”

Gnosi swapped out videotapes, and started playing the second recording. This one clearly showed not only the hand, but a figure (presumably Gnosi) crouched down holding the hand, as well as the subject’s arm, torso and head. As Gus watched, the subject’s hand was touched to the plaque, and the same thick tendril of gray matter emerged from the subject’s forehead before being pulled across and into the plaque. There was another time skip of around half a minute, and then the process reversed itself, with the gray substance diving into the subject’s forehead.

“So what is that?” Gus asked after the video ended.

“I believe it’s a human soul.”

Gus crossed his arms. “Really,” he said, unimpressed.

“This one I can show you,” Gnosi said, getting up.

The two crossed over into the test chamber, where Meridiem had set up two chairs facing each other. The thermal camera was pointing at the chairs, looking like a rather boxy video camera, but with a pair of hoses leading to a box freezer, which in turn was connected to a battery of liquid nitrogen canisters. A wire led from the camera to another television set, which showed a live thermal image of the chairs.

Gnosi instructed Gus to sit in one chair, and Gnosi sat opposite him. He pulled a pendant out from under his shirt, depicting an eye inside a five-pointed star. “This is my mark,” he explained. “It is the symbol for astral projection. Now I haven’t had that many Marking ceremonies to study since making that video, but what little I’ve been able to observe so far makes it appear that what is happening is identical to astral projection.”

“I don’t believe in—” Gus began in a tired voice.

“I was expecting you to say that, which is why I’m going to give you a demonstration. You’ll notice that the temperature in here is 30°C, as warm as a summer’s day. That makes it easier to detect my spirit, which is closer to 20°. Keep your eye on the camera.”

With a sigh, Gus did as he was told. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gnosi close his eyes and massage his temples with both hands. And then he felt something settle on his arm. It felt like a thick fog, only warmer, like tepid water. He looked at his arm, and saw nothing there, then turned to the television, where he saw the familiar grey substance resting on his arm. It looked like an anaconda constructed out of smoke, and its tail came out of Gnosi’s forehead. Gus reached up with his free hand, and by following the temperature gradients, confirmed that there was indeed an invisible something coming out of the young man’s head that was demonstrably cooler than the outside air. “All right, I’m convinced,” Gus said in a shaky voice. Immediately, the cool touch on his arm vanished, and Gnosi opened his eyes. “So, then what happened?”

“I found that I could use my ability to initiate the ceremony, without completing it. And that opened up some real interesting findings, which I’ll show you now. When we do this, it’s important that you remain as quiet as possible unless Meridiem or I tell you otherwise. The normal ceremony opens the gateway between worlds for mere moments, while we’ll be opening it for nearly a full minute.”

Gus nodded in understanding. He looked over at a small table, upon which Meridiem had placed several pieces of equipment. She unfolded one such piece into a modified music stand, which she set up between the two chairs. A second object attached to Gnosi’s chair, extending the arm rest. She then walked over to the refrigerator, put on a pair of rubber gloves, and retrieved a stack consisting of five of the plaques that Gus and Delver had made back in Neighagra Falls before they had left. She placed the stack vertically atop the music stand and secured it with rubber bands, as Gnosi positioned his hand on the arm rest so it was only centimeters away from the closest plaque. There was a little plate resting on a depression in the arm rest, into which Meridiem dropped a pile of chad produced by using a standard hole punch on tissue paper. Finally, she repositioned the television so that Gus could watch both it and what was happening with the plaques at the same time.

“Ready?” asked Gnosi.

Gus signaled with thumbs up.

Gnosi closed his eyes and brought his free hand up to his temple to help him concentrate. He then lightly touched the plaque with one finger.

On the screen, Gus saw Gnosi’s spirit emerge and approach the plaque, but it was held back from entering as Gnosi visibly increased his concentration.

The little pieces of paper near his hand wobbled, many of them standing up on end. And then they started being pulled towards the spot covered by Gnosi’s depressed finger.

Gus leaned forward in fascination. After signaling to Meridiem what he wanted to do and getting her permission, he brought his hand up next to the plaque, and was able to feel the suction pulling at his fingertips. Meridiem placed a hand on Gnosi’s shoulder and squeezed gently. This was apparently some sort of signal, because Gnosi brought his spirit tendril even closer to the plaque in response. This action in turn increased the suction to the point that a single chad flew up to cover the spot under his finger. Looking back and forth between screen and plaque, Gus saw the suction increased still more, causing the center of the small piece of tissue paper to pull slightly into the surface of the plate. Meridiem removed her hand from Gnosi’s shoulder, and Gnosi then pulled the tendril back, causing the chad to drift down to the ground.

Meridiem at this point removed the plate of chad, and picked up a long microphone connected to a small amplifier. Plugged into the amplifier was a pair of over-ear headphones, which she handed to Gus. She then brought the end of the microphone next to the plaque.

Gus put on the headphones, and began adjusting the gain on the microphone. As Gnosi’s spirit was once again brought close to the plaque, the whistling sound of air being sucked into the plate could be heard, but eventually other sounds as well: indistinct shouting and splashing.

A minute later, Meridiem patted Gnosi’s shoulder, which was the signal for him to end the experiment. The experience looked to have winded him a bit. “Well?” he asked.

“I had no idea it was that straightforward,” Gus said, removing the headphones. “I thought we’d have phasing issues, but the evidence suggests that a plaque opens an actual physical portal between worlds when activated, with the entrance on this side being a hole about a millimeter across. I assume that was Equestria I heard?”

“Yes,” said Meridiem. “Although I doubt you heard anything uniquely ‘pony’.”

“Well it certainly means something, unless you’re trying to hoax me. But I felt that suction, and there’s no easy way to fake that with this setup.

“More interesting is that the sounds I heard were open. It wasn’t muffled or full of echoes. You see, I had feared that if there were a portal, it might open up inside the brain of your counterpart, severely limiting the kinds of experiments we could try.”

“And what was the other me doing?”

“If I had to make a guess, I’d say he was at an outdoor swimming pool, based on the acoustics.”

“Good,” said Gnosi. “We both like to swim in the summer. That means we can do the last experiment.”

& & &

Again, the finger was touched to the plate, and the invisible spirit was used to open the portal to Equestria. Gus had a fine string 10 cm long tied to one finger—it was the same color as Gnosi’s hair. The finger and thumb of his other hand were coated with lavender chalk, a strong contrast to the string. With the shotgun microphone in position, Gus listened until it was clear that Gnosi’s pony counterpart had dived underwater, and then he positioned the string next to the portal entrance as Gnosi’s spirit was brought close. The suction pulled the string into the plate, threading through until it stopped. Gus reached forward and pinched the string right where it entered the plate with his chalk-covered fingers, then yanked it back out just before Gnosi withdrew his spirit. The string was then placed on a piece of blotter paper.

The last centimeter of the thread was clearly wet. There was three centimeters of dry thread between the end of the wetness and the beginning of the chalk mark.

“Why three centimeters?” Gus asked. “If this is just a portal like you read about in science fiction, the section exposed to Equestria”—he pointed at the wet part of the string—“and the section exposed to Earth”—he pointed at the chalk-marked part of the string—“should be touching. Unless…unless…” He got up, crossed into the smaller room, and started drawing on the whiteboard. A curious Gnosi and Meridiem followed.

“You’ve been arguing that Equestria is a parallel Earth,” he said, drawing two circles that were nearly touching each other. “What if instead they are actually two worlds in different spatial dimensions, separated by only three centimeters?”

“I don’t get you,” said Gnosi.

“Well imagine it in two dimensions instead of three.” He saw a box in a corner containing the rest of the activated plaques, and removed two of them. One he placed on the table, and from Gnosi’s sleeve he plucked a chad, which he placed on the plaque. He then used his finger to slide the chad around. “Imagine that the world is a flat disk instead of a sphere, and you’re a flat, two-dimensional being, like this paper punch here. You can move forward and back, left and right, but you have no idea what ‘up’ or ‘down’ are. Now here is Equestria.” He picked up the second plaque, and carefully lowered it until it was almost touching the bottom plaque. “Equestria is centimeters away, but two-dimensional you can’t see it.”

“Sure he can,” said Meridiem playfully, reaching forward between the two plaques and turning the paper circle so it was on edge, and now touching both “worlds”.

“Well that’s cheating,” said Gus. “But you get what I’m saying.

“The universe is twelve dimensional. Three dimensions are the ones of space that we’re familiar with, and time is a fourth dimension. That leaves eight more. Most of them are empty dimensions, curled up little things with no size to them, just there to redirect energy under particular circumstances. But testing dimensions is in its infancy. It’s entirely possible that one of those ‘empty’ dimensions is not empty at all. And that fifth dimension is how Equestria can be so close to Earth without us seeing it.”

“Okay,” said Gnosi. “So Equestria is right next door. But if the only way these two worlds can touch each other is through millimeter-size holes that usually open for only a second or two per lifetime, how does that make Equestria so like Earth?”

“Or vice-versa?” asked Meridiem.

“For that, I can only speculate, and throw some pseudo-science at you. Maybe it’s right, maybe it’s something completely different. Hopefully, we can come up with experiments to be sure.

“So let’s start with cultural similarities: the teacups, us speaking the same language, that sort of thing. All of those things were created by thinking creatures, humans on this end and ponies over there. Thought itself operates through quantum theory—in short, the complexity of the human brain is only possible because our synapses manage to play every trick in the quantum physics textbook. All that stuff I told you earlier about waveforms overlapping, events with partial probabilities, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Theorem, that sort of thing. Just as your personality emerges from the field of subatomic particles jostling around inside your brain, perhaps it’s possible that the minds of all thinking beings on the planet are also able to coalesce into a larger gestalt. I mean, if astral projection is possible, and if anyone can project well enough to go visit their Equestrian counterpart for a few minutes, then this idea of Gaia, the mind of the Earth itself, rises to the level of possibility.

“This Gaia consciousness, well it’s not really conscious at all. Not the way you or I are. Does it have any influence on any individual mind? Well considering the sorts of things that humans do to each other, you wouldn’t think so, but I think there is an influence, on an unconscious level. Carl Jung believed in something called the ‘collective unconscious’—maybe Gaia is that, or what is called ‘race memory’.

“Now if Gaia exists, then so should a corresponding spirit of Equestria, and from how you describe Equestrian society, I’m betting that their equivalent to Gaia is much more influential.”

“That sounds like Harmony,” said Meridiem.

“OK, Harmony. Now finally, imagine the interaction between Gaia and Harmony, and how that mingling filters down into the level of individual thoughts. I think that this is why the two worlds are so similar, at least on a cultural level.

“Now as for physical similarities, the reason why we have similar species, that’s a bit harder. Maybe the presence of magic allows Harmony to really change Equestria to mirror Earth. Or maybe magic is manifesting itself here on Earth, but in extremely subtle ways on the genetic level, to nudge Earth species closer to Equestrian forms. Or maybe it’s a 70/30 mix—70% for Equestria, because that world has more magic.”

“So how would you test that?”

“…I have no idea.” He then turned to Meridiem. “So, what’s your research about?”

“I’m trying to stop time.”

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Well, at least zero hour seems to be after Luna's birthday. I think.

As for the new discoveries... Yeah, the thing about astral projection that Gus isn't asking is a pretty big question: What's being projected? Quantum shenanigans are one thing, but they can't adequately explain a physically present thermal anomaly without citing Maxwell's demon. Heck, the fifth-dimensional wormhole is actually easier to explain than an externalized soul; it's likely a stabilized and enlarged bit of quantum foam. (Of course, the how is a lot more complex than the what.)

Fascinatkng developments. Looking forward to more.

[Ms_Fruit_Bat]

Starlight, eat your heart out I guess, that's a wild goal.

[Jordan179]

8785270

It occurs to me that the portal could be draining small quantities of human energy -- perhaps EM, perhaps thermal, perhaps something else -- to activate its operation. It's obviously not draining enough to hurt them.

[Jordan179]

8871278

... and a potentially very dangerous one. Which also suits Starlight Glimmer.