Chapter 134
Yellow Alert 73%
Twilight couldn’t ask everypony to lock themselves away, not during such an important moment. The Canterlot would have to trade a little power for crew morale as they began the jump.
“I’m there, Twi,” Spike said from just beside her, voice gentler than it had been in a long time. How long had she been sitting there without making an order? “Modifications are in place, crew is ready. Say when.”
“Launch,” Twilight ordered.
For a few terrifying seconds there was nothing, just Twilight on the bridge and the whole ship holding its breath underneath her.
She felt it before she saw anything—the touch of some distant machine grabbing hold of the Canterlot, its invisible grip tugging it back towards Proximus B. This was the moment it might pull them down into the planet’s incredible gravity. The Canterlot had already been on its last legs before, it would never survive the pressure with all the modifications they’d made. Twilight had led her ship to disaster.
Were the modifications successful? Yes.
Twilight heard a rumble then, something that must’ve emanated from the Canterlot since there was no medium for sound outside. “Incoming docking protocols from Highway junction 599-12-65-00,” Spike said. “Node is handling the response, aren’t you Node?”
“Handshake successful,” her voice said, almost the same instant he asked. “Unrecognized sail design. Asking for our override. Besides, you know, we might be about to incinerate ourselves.”
“We aren’t,” Starlight Glimmer spoke from her console, glowering at Node. “It will work, Captain.”
“Grant our consent,” Twilight said. Even if we wanted to change our mind, it would be too late now. By the time we built a second sail, half the crew would be robotic. The Hunger might take all of us.
Light bathed the Canterlot from all sides, enough that every one of the external cameras in Twilight’s view was suddenly brilliant blue with little flashes of magical energy. Beneath them, the Canterlot began to move, pushed along by the sail at their back. Despite the name, the magical design more like a mirror, which would hold the ship in compression against its forces.
Does the Sail work? Critical No.
Random Event: Dominate of Animals
Twilight heard it the same moment as the rest of the crew did, a terrible metallic tearing accompanied by crushing rock. Twilight knew instantly what must’ve made that awful sound, and she spun back around to face Starlight. “What the buck was that?”
“Emergency shield online!” Spike shouted, his voice booming over a dozen sirens. “Captain, the highway isn’t letting us go. It’s asking if we’re ready for launch.”
“Of course we’re n—”
Node yelled over her; voice slightly distorted now. Apparently the emergency shield wasn’t doing great things to their communications. “If we cancel the departure now, the highway node will remember our design and never let another ship launch with it again! It doesn’t want to hurt us.”
“I don’t think what it wants will matter much!” Rarity called, on the edge of panic now. “Shield temperature nearly two hundred degrees and rising rapidly! I don’t think you need me to tell you what happens when it fails, captain!”
We might not have a choice. We’ll have to take our chances with the robotic conversion process, and take our time to build something else.
The Dominate of Animals reflects the magical ability inherent in organics, which Starlight intends to use to dominate the threat before them.
“Captain, there was… some possibility this might happen. It has to do with matching the thaumic polarity of the incoming energy. I prepared some modifications to the sail that should match these readings.”
Twilight’s eyebrows went up. She wanted to believe it—the Canterlot needed a miracle at this point. But she knew too much about magic to just accept the explanation. “It took you a month to deploy that spell, Starlight? How are you going to make alterations to it before our shields fail?”
The unicorn rose unsteadily to her hooves, shoving the cushion aside. “You know the way, captain.”
Twilight nodded weakly. There was one way, basically the same thing that their princesses had done. When a pony had spent every drop of magic they had, or wanted to reach beyond to some feat well beyond their power, there was one thing more powerful than any magical reserve.
A soul.
Twilight only had a second to weigh her sacrifice. One life against the survival of the Canterlot. “Equestria will remember you,” she said.
“That was always the goal,” Starlight said wistfully. “Didn’t think I could do this twice.”
Of those listening, only Spike seemed to understand at first. Then Rarity spun her chair to face the other way. “Captain, you can’t be—”
Starlight Glimmer vanished in a flash of her teleportation.
They waited in anxious fear for another few minutes. Twilight didn’t justify her orders, there were enough disasters going on around the ship that there was no time. She diverted what energy to the shields she could find, sent crews to put out fires, and pulled ponies away from the outer layers of the ship, where they’d be cooked alive the fastest.
Twilight felt the spell the moment it happened; a single blinding flare of magical energy intense enough to render the Canterlot transparent to her magical senses. Through the rock and steel and crystal, she saw a single brave mare, outlined before the crystal that produced the sail. It was a spell etched in rock, meant to survive centuries of travel.
Does Starlight’s sacrifice fix the sail? Critical yes.
Starlight’s will battled with the living spell, for only the fraction of a second. It could’ve shattered, but it didn’t. The sail shifted, and the soulfire light went out like a candle.
It wasn’t just her. External cameras suddenly dimmed as the Canterlot jerked forward again. This time the acceleration didn’t pass in a few microseconds, but continued at a steady rate, pressing Twilight’s hooves against the deck in an effective approximation of gravity.
“Repair crew reports structural integrity is… better than nothing,” Applejack said, the first to break the silence aboard the bridge. Only her and the alarms. “We’re not gonna tear apart, anyway. Gonna be a nightmare to fix whatever that grinding was.”
“Launch sequence complete,” Node said. “Starlight, I take it back. Guess your magical-whatever wasn’t as stupid as I thought.”
Twilight winced, wiping away the moisture from one eye. “S-starlight is… dead,” she responded, her voice cracking once. “She’s the reason we’re still alive.”
There was no time for a funeral, not with the Canterlot still barely holding together. But as Spike put it “any difficulties we encounter with acceleration should become catastrophic within the first few days. The further we go, the more likely we are to survive. Assuming none of the spells collapse.”
Twilight remained on the bridge even when her friends grew too exhausted to remain there, and had to pass off their duties to other ponies.
Does anything else go wrong? Critical yes.
That meant in terms of familiar ponies Twilight had only Node over the radio and Spike beside her when every alarm on the ship started going off again. With the lights dimmed and the night-crew with her on the bridge, Twilight took almost thirty full seconds to figure out what was going wrong.
Is it the connection to Node’s ship? Yes.
More precisely, for Node’s voice to finally make it to her through the shouting and the panic. “Princess, I know what’s causing that destabilizing stress. It’s my ship! I’m getting torsion stresses on all three binding sections!”
Twilight swore under her breath, vanishing from her throne and reappearing at Applejack’s usual station. The shiprat there looked up, then slid his chair out of her way so she could use his console without objection.
They’d known this could happen, as the sail pushed on the Canterlot and Node’s collection of derelicts dragged them the other way.
“We thought we knew how the sail’s force would be applied, but I can see now where our calculations went wrong.” Spike said, far more alert than Twilight felt. “If we keep pulling apart like this, the stress is going to tear me in half. I could try to adjust our angle so the stresses are more evenly distributed, but… that shift might be too much. We might explode into a million pieces.”
“Which is it?” Twilight shouted; wings spread in frustration. “Why would you even tell me if it’s going to get us killed?”
“The odds are modest,” Spike said. “Shieldponies have already been assembled and should be prepared in time. I estimate one in five.”
“There’s another option,” Node said. Her voice was suddenly flat, resolute. “We could sever every junction on our end, and you could drop us. No one aboard is vulnerable to the Hunger… we could rebuild, construct our own sails, and eventually follow you.”
1. Sacrifice Node’s ship and all the resources aboard [guaranteed safety for the Canterlot, loss of resources and crew aboard]
2. Risk Spike’s suggested emergency maneuver [chance of total mission failure and loss of all hands.]
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Well. I can see why you choose to open with the author's note on this one.
In any case... yeah, with a 1 in 5 chance of complete destruction, especially after that debacle, I say cut their losses and let the other ship go. Mind you, this will be a huge loss, since Node could be very helpful in terms of communicating with the other Signalers... but she's been gone for a long time, and any society is going to move on. She might not be any better off than the ponies in this case.
Still, the thaumosail's working and that means they'll get to the armada even faster than what the Highway would normally allow. The loss of resources won't be too great a blow. Let's try to put a bow on this one.
Holy crap. The bot pulled out all the stops in trying to kill us
Much as I don't like splitting the party, I think option 1 is the better choice here. As Node noted, the roboponies aren't vulnerable to Hunger...they'll survive, and eventually make it to the Flotilla, even if they have to make the journey separately.
Many have sacrificed themselves so that others may escape. The bots are extremely fortunate that unlike everyone else they have pretty good odds of surviving and catching up one day.
Twilight using soulfire is utter insanity. Alicorns are in critically short supply.
Those are some abysmal rolls huh
I chose to stay together. One in five chance? That's a lot better than the "50% chance of losing everybody, or 100% chance to lose 50%" dilemma.
E Z.
Oh, uh, I mean, friendship forever, yaaaay~
Easy call from my perspective, hard call from the Equestrian view... Horrible call from Twilight's view.
I had to be torn between 2 and 3. Twilight WOULD be willing to sacrifice herself for everyone, she'd want to try and save everyone... But in the end I think she'd be smart enough to realize it was luck and the fact Starlight was the most knowledgeable pony for the task that it succeeded the first time and the amount of luck she'd need to do it a second was just too much.
In the end I went with #1 and will live with the knowledge that Sunset will never forgive us.
I'd say leave the ship behind but who knows, we might need some of the crew onboard.
How can you guys be sacrificing them? the story is ending anyway, we might as well go for the best ending with twilight saving everyone!
Spike's way. We've come this far together, we pass or fail together. Friendship is Magic.
Glimmy... no...
Well, I wouldn't even be considering Node's option had Node not offered it herself. But if we cut off all those ponies from their families, there could be mass mutinies, possibly led by Applejack. And I don't trust Sunset to forgive Twilight for that, either.
Reluctantly, I'm going to roll the dice again. C'mon, 80%...
Let them go for a bit. As far as we know, no one dies from this. The loss of resources will hurt, but it wouldn't hurt as much as everyone dying.
Is Apple Bloom on Node's section? I'm scared of how Applejack will react should Twilight choose option 1.
10191464
I believe she is.
I must admit after all that work the sail, rolling for critical failure was hilarious , and the reason why having random events are great. You'd never get that sort of kick in the teeth with a fair authour deciding what happens.
How could anyone not vote for Emergency maneuver.
Either we get the best ending or go out in a blaze glory.
There is only one thing to say here.
"The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few" -Spock
The real question is does the machine virus work on ponies with their soul destroyed? Technically it should, as the brain is perfectly intact.
Ya know, reading the authors note at the beginning and clicking the strawpoll early, thinking it was something to do with if or if not to do an epilogue, I went into this expecting to vote to save the ship.
However, Node makes a good point. All the converted are immune to the hunger and don’t need supplies. If they drop out, they have every ability to reconstruct and rejoin. I’m actually going to vote to sever them.
This isn't even a choice. The other group has a 100% chance of being able to follow eventually. There is NO RISK to leaving them behind, other than we might need them in the immediate future (unlikely as per author's note).
Dump the metal. They'll find their own way.
We had two critical yeses both for disaster and we reunited resources. Let's go shield ponies
this reminds me of an explanation about what the phrase "truth is stranger than fiction"
In typical fiction there are many tropes and conventions than authors are expected to take, that is why do many stories seem to have similar plots.
By controlling the plot "randomly" your making events more closely resemble the cruelty of reality.
Now many authors trying to rebel against the conformity of typical plotlines have tried to break away from the constraints of fiction.... but you have to ask, even if they are successful and create stories that emulated reality a bit 'better' did there crueler more 'gritty' stories actually improve anything?
sometimes experimental fiction, results in an experiment that "fails" but you can still learn something from that.
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Sunset would get to be a Captain again. Since she’s a metal mongrel too now, she’d be over there to lead them. Although the idea of them seeking robot vengeance later is fun, I would imagine Sunset being the pragmatic sort would approve of the choice to cut them loose. I’ll admit to being surprised at how close it was what I voted.
We salute to you Starlight.
Well, this is it, the choose your 3 flavors of ending.
The entire reason we made that station was because we knew we were likely to need its resources, despite knowing we'd likely have deaths because of it. If we drop them off, we'll forever be in front of them until we meet the fleet, losing all access to said resources.
It's a big risk, but it's worth it on the resources alone, ignoring all morale effects of leaving behind friends&family.
Cut them loose. We've come this far, had so many rolls...I'm not taking the chance of total mission failure. Node's got a damn good point. Everyone on board that ship is not at risk to the Hunger.
10191428
Because there's a chance that everyone dies? Twilight isn't sacrificing anyone by cutting Node's ship loose. They'll find their own way.
It doesn't feel dire enough for the Soul fire tactic yet, and risking mission failure to the degree suggested is too much... so despite really not liking the idea, we need to say goodbye to the roboponies.
Well, this could be it. This could very well be it.
We've lost Starlight, and despite her sacrifice are on the precipice of destruction.
Well, the precipice of destruction if we picked option 2. Not on my fucking watch
Option 1. Ponykind needs to survive, no matter what.
Space is merciless.
And lose our last alicorn? Pony society has been led by Alicorns for thousands of years. We’ve seen how directionless the ship rats had been for so long. Pony society would die without Twilight. At the very least they would need a long transition period to become self-reliant. But I say we keep the roboponies. 1/5 are not terrible odds.
As much as we adored Node, perhaps it's time to cut her loose...
10192305
Yes... and that's why you put a FUCKTON of contingencies on everything you build.
We're all in this together, Node included. Nobody gets left behind. Either we all live, or we all die. The crew would've all died by now many times over without Node's contribution: as the last of the Signallers, who's to say that won't continue to be true?
Edit: Also, can any of you seriously imagine Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship, leaving friends behind to be swallowed by the void? The whole premise of what made Twilight strong is that friendship is magic. Leaving Node behind is the most unfriendship, and therefore unTwilight thing there is to do out there
10191548
"One for all and all for one" - the Three Musketeers
10192731
We would've died without her. Who's to say we don't need her anymore?
Wow, this chapter was an true roller coaster of emotions...
I mean, really.
Not sure yet what I should vote for; have to think about it for a moment.
(Too bad Twilight doesn't have that luxury, she might come up with an plan to save everyone at no costs.)
10192673
Besides, we're in the endgame now. GO BIG OR GO HOME!
80% is great odds for an all-or-nothing gambit.
10192854
Who's to say we'll never see them again? Your logic confuses us. By that same reasoning, the Equinox would have never launched:
We would have died (as a world) without Celestia. We can't just leave her behind! Think about all those resources and friends! Either as all live or we all die, together!
Good god, just about the only way that could have gone worse is if everyone exploded.
Screw the odds, everyone goes with. Option 2.
Leave no one behind. The sacrifice made demand this.
Big oof finally happened, yup. Looks like all the decisions I went "No, that's a terrible idea." on went "Yeah, you right."
As for this choice I'd say take 'em with us, go for broke. Either it's a spectacular failure or spectacular success. Leaving them behind has a lot of hidden factors below the surface I think and none of them are good.
Where's the vote?
Option 1 - The needs of the many....additionally, the metal pones will have the mined resources so constructing sails will be quick. The loss is negligible to nonexistent.
I think one thing needs to be brought up in deciding what comes next that hasn't been brought up in the chat here.
We still don't know why Iron Horse turned on the crew when facing the agent of the hunger. Was he a secret agent like Cozy Glow? Or had the Hunger found a use for mechanical life forms since it couldn't eat them?
Just because they can catch up, doesn't necessarily make that a good thing.
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Yes, Apple Bloom is with Node, along with all the other mechanically converted ponies.
Well they're in a right spot, aren't they? I say bugger it all and go for it all. Keep 'em together, lads.
Option 2. There is no point in surviving, if they lose who they are. Ponies don't abandon their friends.
I remember Node said that the Flotilla uses Shkadov thrusters to travel.
But do they have something like this?
steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1017194486543075548/8C1AB37490169B84A210885E99E0E98717A6B145/
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The reboot gender swapped Dr. Smith. I remember the original. And the one shot movie.
The weight of being the one in charge grows heavier with each choice, right or wrong.
The moral conundrum of choosing what is right, and what ensures survival, is heart wrenching sometimes. A leader must decide what choices they can live with, and what evils they are willing to shoulder.
I would sever Node's ship.
If they survive exiting the highway, they could eventually build their way back and catch up. But they would lose supplies, and the loss of loved ones would drop moral.
If Spike's maneuver fails, everything gets destroyed and everyone dies. But, everyone makes it and the supplies are not lost.
What is one willing to sacrifice to sit in the Captain's chair?
Greater Love hath no mare than this; that she would lay down her life for her friends.