Tell him, then bring him along 63%
“Spike, wake up.” She pushed him gently, but firm enough that he wouldn’t have a choice. It took a little more effort than it might’ve when he was younger. But he was no baby dragon anymore, not small enough to push around whenever she wanted. There was still something cute about the way he curled up, even if he didn’t use the bed, just slept on the floor in a corner. I wonder if that’s what happened because you grew up without any pony role models. Too bad you could’ve have been frozen with the rest of us.
Spike looked weary, his eyes drooping. “Twilight? I thought you were gonna… give me a week.”
Twilight passed him a levitating cup of tea. It had been brewed with her day’s ration, far hotter than she could’ve drunk. But to a dragon the closer to boiling the better. Spike took it, swallowed, and looked a bit better. “We’ve discovered something… very serious, Spike. It didn’t feel right to deal with it without involving you.”
“Serious?” He sat up in bed, running one claw through the purple ridges on his head. “Something worse than our leaking engines? Did I somehow… pump carbon monoxide into the vents? Or… maybe an alien ship is outside trying to talk to us?”
“No, neither.” Twilight pulled over a chair, sitting down and facing him. She explained what they’d discovered as quickly as she could, and finished with. “Whoever did this has put our landing in jeopardy. You know as well as I do that we don’t have the supplies to fly back to Equestria right now. We were expecting to make friends here, and use what they could give us to make the trip. Or, worst case, wait another few decades for Equestrian ships with better drives to catch up. But now we’ve lost our deployable cryo pods… and probably a lot of other things. I haven’t had time to catalog it all yet.”
“It wasn’t me, Twi. You know I’d… I’d never do any of that! Why would I hide in a cargo bay when I have a nice bedroom right here? Why would I… piss in a bucket when we have toilets?”
“I know,” Twilight answered, though she wasn’t convinced either way yet. But there was no reason to make Spike think that she didn’t agree. “But at the same time, we have a problem. We have to figure out how you didn’t notice someone living with you on the Equinox for… I don’t know, months? Maybe years? I’m sure we could calculate from the volume of the…” she shook her head. “Missing rations.”
“That’s easy,” Spike flipped out of bed, rising to his claws. “You said it was all in the cargo bay? Twi, when would I go in there? That’s landing supplies. I only ever visited Cargo 3—that’s where the spare parts are. Two is a different hallway.”
“You never inspected, even once? Didn’t check to see if things might’ve shifted during the turnover, or…”
Spike shook his head. “Never. The turnover was… pretty long into the trip, Captain. I was getting… I wasn’t doing great by then, okay? Messages from Equestria took years by then. I thought about waking you up almost every day… but that would’ve meant years you wouldn’t get back. You don’t have as many to spare as I do. The others even less. And… don’t forget I’m a dragon. When things got really bad, I would just sleep. I can do it for months at a time if I bring the temperature down slow and carefully enough. If I was older, I could sleep for a lot longer. But even six months and I feel pretty cranky when I get up.”
Twilight nodded. She still didn’t know if she’d inherited Celestia’s immortality, or whether her new elevation was basically cosmetic. It might be many years still before she knew the answer, thanks to Spike’s generosity. “You know there are logs I can check, right? I’m not saying this to disbelieve you, Spike. But the computer will know if you ever went in.”
Spike shrugged, though he winced a little as she said it. “If you don’t believe me… you can look. But I promise you’re not going to find anything in there, Twi. The only storage I ever went into is three. Now… didn’t you say there was another reason for waking me up?”
“Yes,” Twilight rose as well. She wasn’t convinced yet—wouldn’t be until she dug through the logs and checked for herself, and that would take hours of moving reels around. But it was at least reasonable. “Because if it wasn’t you who was moving things around… it was somepony else. Lander is still green, and so is the escape pod. You know what that means?”
“They’re still here?”
She nodded. “Do you have a weapon?”
Spike shook his head. “I, uh… used to walk around with one of those riot sticks, just to have something for my claws. But after a while the trip started to…” he looked away. “I didn’t even want a knife in my toolkit sometimes. But I can get something out of—”
“No.” Twilight pulled him close, wrapping her wings around him in a hug. She could hear the pain in Spike’s voice, the sincerity. If Spike was lying to her, then he had used his years alone to become remarkably good at manipulating ponies. Somehow, she didn’t think that was possible. “I’m sorry, Spike. I don’t really think it was you. I’m just doing my job. All Equestria’s counting on us.”
“I know,” Spike said, wiping tears away from his face with the back of one claw. “I know.”
They stayed that way for a few more seconds until Spike finally shifted uncomfortably and let go. Twilight nodded towards the door. “Well then… let’s find our stowaway.”
Can live with that.
Sometimes in an choice driven story, you have to make the characters build from your chosen path. It will make things like rapid decisions, and small gain to an high cost even more terrifying. Or like an long time decision like f.exp the decision not not choose an lander before even going will hurt or not. The butterfly effect is an valid argument for this.
years along -> years alone
I agree whit 9245575 You need a chapter ever now and agian to build the characters.
So ad this to the rule about ending whit a choice:
You can word it better but the point is made.
I don't think they've properly processed how pants wetting terrifying is the prospect of an intruder that spent years living on their ship
9245616
I've revised the rules just a bit to reflect my having a vote in every chapter being more of a guideline than a hard rule. I'm sure I'll encounter situations like this again, so it's best to get that reflected now.
9245637
You should also change the 1st rule to give yourself bit leeway. Like f.eks: chapter will mostly be around 1000 words.
So you were hedging your bets on finding friendly aliens to make the trip back. Did no one designing, making, and planning the ship and trip think that that is just a terrible idea.
A wise choice. Limiting yourself to a thousand words per chapter means there's little room for character growth if you have to crowbar in the consequences of our choices and the setup for the next one in every chapter. Let's see how this goes from here.
9245755
The entire reason they sent the ship was because they detected an alien signal. Also, they're ponies. Are you really that surprised that their plan relies on the kindness of strangers?
9245767
I mean, even if they refused to believe that aliens MIGHT be hostile to them, you'd think that they'd at least consider the possibility that whatever sent the signal has either moved on or is now dead. (Personally,I'm suspecting Proxima B is a dead planet, and the "metal deposits" are derelict cities.)
Even considering their relentless optimism and pacifism, these are national heroes and an actual Princess we're risking. Not even CONSIDERING alternative possibilities into the plan is just unforgiveable from a mission planning standpoint.
And hell, they had weapons systems, which implies they at least considered the possibility of hostiles. Why did they make the rest of the plan so inflexible around an assumption they have no reason to believe is true beyond sheer conviction?
9245767
Yes, they did detect an alien signal. But that doesn't imply there are lots of aliens there. It literally could just be some listening or viewing outpost that is fully automated (That may be the signal they were picking up from the planet). Maybe these aliens have something like the star trek prime directive, where they can't interfere with a developing civilisation. If that's the case, A fully automated outpost just keeping an eye on them is all they'd really need.
There is no reason to have cities worth of people just to look at a planet that they probably won't even be allowed to go to for thousands (Probably even tens or hundreds of thousands) of years. I mean having an entire colony right next door for so long means it's almost inevitable someone will, at some point, break the directive and go to them.
And the fact that ponies brought weapons in the first place means they do acknowledge the fact that there is a non-zero chance the aliens are not friendly.
The only other option is that Twilight meant to say the aliens are needed to help repair their ship after the damage it took, because she thinks it is unlikely it would survive the whole trip back. If that is true, then this is a case of poor wording on the author's part, and not poor planning.
That didn't take long!
Character development is worth a broken rule or two.
Also I'll just leave a theory here that the stowaway is the CMC.
I call that a reasonable executive decision. Looking forward to the next chapter and finding out who our stoaway is! I wonder if it's a changeling? The cryo "pod" and the fact that they may have had to survive the same number of years as SPIKE makes me wonder. Perhaps Chrysalis sent an infiltrator along to help the Changelings get a leg up in first contact?
Very cool fic. Can't wait for more!
9245781
This mission was extremely rushed, as should be obvious from just how rough, and barely above Beta Testing phase some of the stuff they have is. They detected proof of intelligent life out there, and power leveled their space tech to get a crew out to it ASAP. This was the very first ship they had that was likely to make the trip, and they sent it. Twilight did say that the make friends and get supplies was plan A, they also had a plan B, use the spare cryo pods and supplies that they had just lost to this stowaway to wait for another ship from Equestria that would be more advanced.
"what!? 2 chapters in one day?! people sure must have voted fast for me to miss it." Oh wait, change in rules
I agree with the decision to have a character development chapter every now and then without a choice.
In the end i assume the goal is to have written a story that was fun to write and enjoyable to read right? Might have to bend a few rules every now and then for that.
As for the results of our choice so far I kinda feel guilty for doubting spike. Im glad the majority wasnt as cynical as me. Though if changelings are involved then i take that back.
The way I see it, this isn't much different from reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book that usually gives you a choice per page, but sometimes runs you through a longer segment where you flip the page normally before reaching your next decision point. There's no harm in it.
A chapter now and again with no choice for a good reason seems fine.
B) Lavender Wallpaper