Stories Not Appearing Is This Fic

by SirNotAppearingInThisFic

Space Race [Comedy, Sci-Fi]

Equestria

---

There’s nothing new under the sun. Celestia hadn’t even coined the phrase, but she found herself echoing it during court. Ponies quibbled over the same issues they quibbled over hundreds of years ago. While she hadn’t meant it literally, she made the mistake of uttering the phrase in passing to Luna, after her sister had asked how the day went.

And now Twilight had come over for tea, and wanted to solve her problem. Some things really never changed.

Celestia’s smile faltered when Twilight let out a quick gasp.

“I know! It’s so obvious.”

Celestia could see the corners of a grin fighting to come out, quelled only by a train of thought moving as fast as only bad news and Twilight’s mind could.

“It won’t be easy, but what if somepony went over the sun? I mean, relatively speaking, of course. Even while I highly doubt that you’ve experienced and learned everything even in Equestria, I know nopony has ever gone that far.”

“Twilight, I remind you that pegasi can only fly so far up before the air no longer supports them or gives them breath. Luna is more versed in such knowledge, but I understand that it is speculated that there may be a complete void if one kept going up.”

“I know, but we can work around that. If we can make a capsule that holds up underwater against several atmospheres’ pressure, then we shouldn’t have a problem making something that can hold in just one atmosphere’s worth of pressure.”

Celestia sighed. “I’m not sure I can tell you ‘no’, or if you would listen if I did. Twilight, at least promise me that you won’t risk anybody’s lives pursuing this.”

“Of course not! I’m going to have to set up something of a base of operations where we can run all sorts of experiments, first.”

---

Yaks

---

“... and so Twilight wants to get a pony stuck in space so we can find out if there is anything new over the sun. Isn’t it great?” Pinkie Pie beamed.

Prince Rutherford snorted. “Ponies silly. Yaks know about ‘gravity’. Gravity makes yaks heavy. Pony will just fall back down.”

“Maaaybe. Twilight says there’s more to going to space than just going up. We have to go sideways a lot, too.”

“Space is not sideways. Sideways just mountains.”

“That’s why the pony goes up first, silly. Then they go sideways, and bam, they’re stuck in space!”

“Hmmm… Yaks not sure. Why pegasus not just fly up to space?”

Author's Note:

Written in May, 2017. This is the precursor to Explode Twice in Unhinged, which later evolved into For the Benefit of Yaks as an entry into FoME's Imposing Sovereigns II contest. The first section is exclusive to this fragment, though.

Comments

[hawthornbunny]

Yet another link in the increasingly complicated heritage of For the Benefit of Yaks

[Bugsydor]

10276483
As with everything else about Yakyakistan's space program, it's wild.