• Published 10th Oct 2018
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Voyage of the Equinox - Starscribe



Equestria's first interstellar ship is crewed by the best and brightest Equestria has to offer. Twilight Sparkle and her friends are determined to uncover the origin of the mysterious alien Signal, no matter what it costs. A comment-driven story.

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Chapter 47

Land and farm 83%

After their last experience on the surface of Zerzura, Twilight half-expected some kind of mounted gun to emerge from the soil to shoot the Prospector to pieces, or maybe a gigantic metal deer would emerge from the trees and trample them. But nothing like that happened, and the prospector descended slowly and calmly on the largest bare patch of ground in the area they were calling the “safe zone.”

“So this is the map,” Twilight said, passing out printouts about an hour after the landing. It wasn’t a formal meeting, not with so few crew and Applejack wrapped in layers of blankets and barely awake. The flu was no illness to ignore, but it also wasn’t likely to kill her so long as they kept an eye on things. “This is the area we’re going to restrict ourselves. It’s mostly… wilderness, overgrown. But there’s a large structure about three kilometers from here. I put us down a good distance away, in case it has any active defenses.” Or if it’s the den of another giant ship-eating worm.

“I don’t mean to be confrontational—” Applejack began. “But this ain’t no wilderness. Okay, let me rephrase. Baring this being an alien world and nothin’ I know bein’ true about it, this wouldn’t be a wilderness if it were Equestria.” She squinted down at the map, before breaking down into hacking coughs.

“You can go back to bed,” Fluttershy whispered from beside her. “Really. We can plough where you want, the way you want, while you rest.”

Applejack glared at her, though she didn’t have the voice to argue for a few more seconds. So far nopony else in the crew had come down with the illness, but Twilight feared it was only a matter of time. Maybe that’s for the best. If we all get infected at the same time, it might burn itself out. Or maybe it would only cripple her crew for a few weeks, while nopony accomplished anything productive.

“It’s just…” Applejack began again. “There ain’t no debris spread everywhere. No big rocks, and the trees are all… small. They strike me more like a field that went wild, got overgrown. Maybe this place was always used fer growin’.”

They all looked to the side, where Node rested connected to the power supply port. Node had remained fairly non-responsible during the trip down, though it hadn’t actually told them not to land. It told them nothing now, not without prompting.

“Node, I want to ask you something. What is this place, do you know?”

Does Node know? No.

At least the robot moved a little, rising and approaching the table. “I am not aware of it. It seems… significant. Vital, perhaps. Was not damaged when so much else was destroyed. The secret is probably inside the building. I will go with one of you there, and we will discover it together.”

Twilight stuck out a wing to block his path. “Not yet, Node. We haven’t decided on our priorities yet. We don’t just wander off and do things without carefully deciding on our options.”

“I could go then,” Node argued, walking around her towards the airlock. Of course it wouldn’t open for it, not without it bypassing the security somehow.

“No,” Twilight raised her voice, just a little. “Node, if you want to stay with this crew, you will obey my orders. There are real risks to investigating that building, like the chance we might provoke a response that will make this area unsafe.” She concentrated, and vanished from the table, reappearing a few inches in front of Node. She wasn’t nearly as tall as the robot, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t look menacing. At least, she hoped her magic was intimidating. “If you leave without my permission, we will not take you back. Understand?”

Node retreated one step from Twilight’s glare. There was no expression to read, though she thought she could hear the cooling fans inside its torso spinning up as they considered her. Then it answered. “Very well. Structured command is one form of government. Not my preference. But I will comply.”

“Good,” Twilight gestured to the table. “Then join our meeting. You can have a voice at our table, you can be one of us. But you don’t get to put all of us in danger.”

The robot retreated, then joined the table where she had instructed. Twilight glanced once at the crew—Applejack looked thrilled, Fluttershy frightened, and Pinkie’s expression was still unreadable. “Now, obviously we’re here to farm. That’s the first priority, and that’s what everypony here will be doing. Unless those tissue samples have changed in the last few hours…”

Fluttershy shook her head. “They’re all clean. Applejack’s results too. I wouldn’t have decided to test things this way, but… we’re about as sure as we can be without eating what we grow.”

“Then consider the biohazard restrictions lifted,” Twilight said. “At least until we see any sign of danger. We still don’t know a great deal about this planet—where the air came from, what happened to the ponies who lived here. We haven’t seen a single body.”

“Inquiry,” Node said, raising one of its manipulating limbs to get her attention. Not that Starlight Glimmer’s voice wouldn’t have done that all on its own. “Ponies? Ponies have not lived on Zerzura until your arrival.”

“It’s a way we speak,” Applejack said. “Don’t you got a translation program in there? Or is that too abstract for an AI?”

There’s obviously something, we’re talking right now. But she didn’t speak for Node, and rob them of a chance to learn more about it.

“Cultural idiom, understood. Translation is… imprecise. Cultural biases of my creators does not parody your… mind configuration. Communication in this form is lossy.”

“So, here’s what we need to decide…”

1. Remain as isolated as possible. Clear the minimum possible land, do not explore beyond the farm, leave the ship as little as possible. The Prospector might not be roomy, but it’s safe.

2. Shore Leave. We can use this landing as a mental-health break for the crew. So long as they aren’t doing anything too dangerous, they can do their own thing. They really need it.

3. We’re Explorers. As soon as the seeds are in the ground, we get a team into that building and find out why it’s still here. Obviously this place is safe if life can survive here. Maybe there are intact alien machines inside.

Author's Note:

This chapter's poll!

https://www.strawpoll.me/17297177

What you’re reading is a CYOA-style adventure story, fully driven by its user feedback. This story is written using a system called Mythic, a GM-simulator that allows me to be fully in the driver’s seat for the prose, without actually knowing what will happen next. Success or failure in this story is fully governed by the fickle hand of fate, as well as the wisdom of those who chose to vote on it.

You can go ahead and vote in older polls if you want, but obviously they won’t retroactively change the text going forward, so the links are left behind mostly because I’m lazy and as a record of previous decisions.

If you’d like to take a look at my semi-regularly updated blog post with character sheets and stuff, go ahead and visit here: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/834930/voyage-of-the-equinox-resource-page

And if you’re curious about the dicerolls and the system, you can see all of it for yourself and verify that I’m not cheating on my discord here: https://discord.gg/mQfUn75

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