Chapter 1: the Discoveries For the Ages
before you get into reading the story, i would like to thank all of you who liked this story, and gave it a đź‘Ť! even though this was a spur of the moment, and not a planned fic, i would like to thank all of you who actually want this story to continue. hopefully you'll like the future chapters i upload. 
It was now close to high noon, and the R.O.V.E.R was still at work in documenting everything it sees, and stores samples of various plants and soil in its carrier capsules. And aside from footage and pictures, and samples of plant life, the R.O.V.E.R unit has also taken photographs of small terrestrial animals that it’s come across, which strangely and bizarrely, look like the same type of animals back on Earth. However, there were some clear distinctions between the animals of this new world, and those of Earth.
For example, the rabbits that passed by the R.O.V.E.R all have heads that were the same size as their bodies, which were very tiny even for a small creature like a rabbit, in all honest it looked like it shouldn’t be able to move at all, without great complications. And yet the four rabbits that passed by the mechanical beast, seemed to have no trouble in moving what so ever. Other animals that the R.O.V.E.R has come across also shared some odd body portions, while others seemed to resemble very close to those on Earth.
As the machine was making its rounds around the forest, a few birds got a little curious and flown down from their tree branches, and started to circle around the mechanical beast. Some even landed on the R.O.V.E.R and decided to have a nice ride.
But when they landed on the machine, the long prehensile tail of the R.O.V.E.R coiled up like a snake, and the ocular lenses on the tip started to examine the birds, causing a few to fly away because of the sudden action, while others just watched the tail in curiosity. A few minutes after the birds have perched on the mechanical beast, the R.O.V.E.R unit found a sizable pond in a small clearing and began examining the area, while it’s tail entered the water and use its magnifying scope to examine the micro-organisms that live in it. But as the R.O.V.E.R continued with its surveillance; something was picked up by its motion monitor as the birds riding the machine flew off. Turning its head unit up to look across the pond, the R.O.V.E.R came face to face with something that shocked it’s operators on the other side of its camera.
Standing a mere eight feet from the mechanical beast, was something that could only be described as unnatural…a trio of wolves…that were made of wooden material!
The three arbor lupines made their way around the pond, and flanked the R.O.V.E.R from both sides, their wooden maws snarling with what looked like sap drooling from between their teeth. These creates were no bigger than Canadian timber wolf, so to the R.O.V.E.R—which is twice the size of an African male lion—these were fairly small creatures. But since their an unknown life form, the R.O.V.E.R was taking precautions to insure that it wasn’t damaged to much, so as the wooden wolves closed in on the machine, side panels on its upper body slide open and a small ocular tube extend outward.
The wolf on the machines right lowered its body, as if reading itself to lunge at the R.O.V.E.R. but the machines right ocular tube was pointed at the wooden beast, and a thin beam of red light was fired at the ground a foot from the wolf’s head, causing a small impact sound…but creating a foot n’half size hole that was smoking. The wolf yipped as it hopped back a few paces. The other two wolves took the distraction as an opportunity to leap at the R.O.V.E.R, but the other laser projector blasted back one of the two, while the other was snagged by the tail and flung back to the other side of the pond. The frighten wolf regained it’s confidence and leapt onto the R.O.V.E.R, and clamped its jaws down on the back of the neck…but its wooden teeth broke on the reinforced steel armor, causing the wolf to howl in pain, before the tail of the mechanical beast wrapped around the wolfs body and slung it off itself.
After the scuffle was over with, the two wolves that were flung away recovered from their toss, and ran off with their tails between their legs. As for the third wolf…the laser blast to it’s chest created a gapping hole, with a mixture of sap and a thin looking lime green fluid oozed out onto the grassy terrain. With the threat now gone, the R.O.V.E.R trotted over to the corpse of the dead wolf, and began examining the wooden creature.
The R.O.V.E.R’s tail cam began to slither into the cavity no in the wolf’s chest, examine the interior, and instead of finding organs, the R.O.V.E.R’s tail camera only found vines and small wooden constructs that look like a heart made out of bark. While the machines tail was examining the insides, the mechanical beasts head camera shifted through its various settings, scanning for body temperatures—which came up negative—to other types of lenses as it examined the body. A few minutes later and the machine finished its autopsy of the corpse, the R.O.V.E.R cleaned its tail of any fluids, and continued to traverse through the woods. Re-entering the forest the mechanical beast was plunged into darkness, as the trees were more denser, and the canopy was preventing the sun to even pierce through.
Thankfully, the R.O.V.E.R unit is equipped with a night-vision so it’s able to move through the darkness of the woods fairly easy.
Maneuvering through the trees and the underbrush, the R.O.V.E.R began searching for more interesting subjects, and with the presence of the wooden wolves the mechanical beast was bound to find more interesting life forms. A small rustle from a dense wall of bushes caught the R.O.V.E.R’s audio receptors, and motion monitor. But what really caught the machines attention was a dim purple glow coming from the other side of the bushes. The mechanical beast made it’s way over to the bushes to investigate the source of the rustling, and the purple light, but as it approached the bushes something came popping out of the dense shrubbery…and it would forever be marked as one of mankind’s greatest discovery!
~~Twilight~~
So far the trudge through the Everfree Forest was uneventful, which was perfectly fine by the unicorn, as she didn’t feel like tangling with timberwolves, manticores or whatever type of monstrous creatures that reside in the forest. The only thing that was hampering her progress through the forest, was trying to remember the path to the old castle, as she’s only ventured to the ruins only once.
“I probably should’ve looked for any sort of map—OW!” Twilight groaned as a bent twig snapped back, striking her on the flank as she moves through a thick brush.
“It would have made this a lot easier.” The unicorn comment as she trudges onward, even if leaves and small twigs get snagged into her mane and tail, and her coat gets matted. “Well in any case, I should be very—OOF!”
Twilight came crashing into something, hard. Bringing a hoof to her muzzle the little unicorn rubbed her sore muzzle, afterwards she turned to look at what she bumped into. But what she saw…it was indescribable.
The, thing, in front of her…Twilight wasn’t sure how to describe what she is looking at. The only thing she could say is that the thing before her is like nothing else she’s read or seen in a book. It was bigger than a manticore, at least two times bigger, and its body looks like it was covered in armor. But the main thing that Twilight was focus on, was the large singular eye that was staring into her own eyes, never blinking. From what she could see of the creature, it’s body was lean in appearance, but looked to be covered in metallic armor.
The creature then trudged through the bushes, it’s oddly shaped feet pressing down on the bushes, and started to slowly circle around the little unicorn, who was shaking like a leaf as she watches the large creature encircle her. As the creature continues to circle around the pony, Twilight noticed that the tail of the creature was raised and coiled up, like a snake as the tip was trained on her…before three slender grey appendages emerged from the tip of the tail! And began to reach down towards her! The little pony flinched and scuttled back away from the tail, but ended bumping into the front legs of the creature, and feeling a slight chilling sensation along her flanks and lower.
Looking up Twilight was once again meet with the cyclopean eye of the creature, as it shifts from one odd tinge of color to the next. Twilight then looked away from the creatures sole eye, and watched as the creatures tail reaches out for her. the slender grey tendrils flexing and un-curling as they inched closer to her.
“NO!” In that moment, Twilight’s horn lit up with magic—and she teleported back to the boundary of the forest, where she laid collapsed on the floor, while her breathing became heavy as the mare was in a slight state of panic.
“Wha—what was that thing?” the unicorn muttered as she thought back to that singular eye…that tail with those tendrils…a shutter ran down the mare’s back as the image of the tail came to her mind. “Maybe Celestia was right…I should let her handle this.”
Once she’s recovered from the teleport, and the fright she just had, the unicorn made her way back to the library. And as she trots along the path, her mind keeps going back to that, thing in the forest. It was so unusual, so bizarre looking, she’s certain that no book in the library would have anything on that creature.
“I just hope whatever that thing is, it stays in the forest.”
~~R.O.V.E.R~~
The mechanical beast was scanning the area where it came in contact with the unicorn, while the humans back at Home Base were frantically looking at the footage the R.O.V.E.R took. So far this was the most incredible discovery that the humans have ever documented, especially when they repeatedly replay the part where the unicorn just, vanished in a flash of violet light!
After the scientist and researches stopped gushing over the footage, they then instructed the R.O.V.E.R unit to search the forest for that unicorn, and carefully observe it from a far. As well as search for other unicorns if they were in the area. The R.O.V.E.R stopped searching the immediate area, and began to follow the trail that the unicorn left behind. It would probably go un-noticed by any non-expert tracker, but the R.O.V.E.R was able to scan the slight disturbances made into foliage. As the mechanical beast followed the tracks it eventually came to a more worn out path, and after following the path for just a few minutes, the R.O.V.E.R unit came upon a connection point, with three other paths worn into the ground.
Each of the paths has various amounts hoof prints patted onto them, but one path certainly has more hoof prints on it than the others. After a brief deliberation, the R.O.V.E.R started to walk along the trail with the most prints, which suggested to the humans back at Home Base that a large herd of unicorns must use it, and quite frequently.
Twenty or so minutes of walking down the trail, the mechanical beast merged from the dark forest, and found itself surrounded by apple trees. Trotting into the columns of apple trees, the R.O.V.E.R’s head slowly scanned over each and everyone of the trees, noting that the apples looked very ripe.
As the R.O.V.E.R traverses further into the orchard of apple tree, the machine continues to scan for signs of life, but so far, it wasn’t picking up anything. But as the machine continues its search, it did come across another interesting sight. A small, rather cutesy looking tree house. Approaching the tree the R.O.V.E.R unit scanned the area, and finding various amounts of smaller hoof prints from the main trail, scattered around the tree. Standing up on its hind legs, and prompting itself up on the tree houses balcony with its front paws, the R.O.V.E.R unit was able to see into the structure.
There wasn’t much inside the structure itself, aside from a small table, a very tiny podium, and a simple later that leads to the upper part. As the machine scanned the small tree house, the R.O.V.E.R unit pushed itself off the tree and went back to standing on all fours, but as the machine re-oriented itself…a couple of sharp gasp caught the machines attention…before it spotted three new subjects of interest. Which caused all the people at Home Base, to go slack jaw.
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Ah I hate cliffhangers! Seriously this is great, the only bad thing about it was that it was to short for my liking, where is the rest of it dammit!
10433893 I secon this.
Cutie Mark Crusaiders alien machin tamers,YAY!!!
10433893
don't worry. now that ponies are in i'll be adding dialog, as R.O.V.E.R can't talk and has limited emote capabilities. so from this point on, R.O.V.E.R will have a little section, and the rest will be about the ponies reacting and pretty much marveling at the robot.
10433924
NO SPOILERS!
10433926
To be honest, I feel like ROVER would have a small speaker or something, atleast for field operatives that work with ROVER and other, but this is just my brain talking because this is one of the most realistic robots you will find on here.
PS: loved chapter and I highly look forward to more from ya bud.
When I read this story I imagine this guy:tfwiki.net/mediawiki/images2/1/1e/ROTF_Ravage_promo.jpg
o luna rover found the cmc
10434043
That's the combat scout version, they only crack that bad boy out when they send the troopers to go in.
10434043
It's Ravage from Transformers 2 movie
Maybe he would fit as an armed version designed to assist, escort R. O. V. E. R in a dangerous environment?
One unit for combat and one for scouting and research will make it so they will be able to focus on their tasks better
Lovely progress with first chapter. Nothing like good old superior human technology.
Faved cant wait to see more of this
10433926
ROVER could 'blink' its eye on and off to use Morse Code albeit slowly. ROVER is quadrupedal, thus it could use body language and emulate pony gestures.
ROVER - aka AMEE from Red Planet, but with a tail... BEAT U 2 IT:
i.imgur.com/Gtln782.png
10433651
Actually reminds me of this story
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/409889/a-wolf-in-cybernetic-armor
But yours has more immediate connection to the humans
Looking forward to how this progresses
And the robo-dog meets the CMC... well this is going to get interesting.
This story has some potential...keep it up!
10434572
the eye only blinks when R.O.V.E.R takes a picture. and even though its animal in design, it has VERY limited interaction software whether it be with animals or humans. but R.O.V.E.R can be manually controlled by Home Base, so they can mimic body languge.
10434043
i already have idea for a combat robot for the story. plus.....i don't like those Movie transformers designs, they look like their trying way to hard to look badass.
10433985
well R.O.V.E.R is primarily a first unit exploration robot. the humans send it into new worlds they discover, and have it scout the world, and record what it sees and experiences. once its Scouting period is over, it gets sent back to Earth--turned off of course--then the science department and research operatives are brought in. and for this story (in't is universe) humanity hasn't planned to actually meet other life forms like them, so they didn't think a speaker would be appropriate for the design.
I have two problems, how can i up vote it more than once, and need more
Can't wait for more updates!
10435505
already working on the next chapter.
No me gusta pero tampoco me desagrada, esperare un poco para ver como evoluciona.
10435487
No prob, I might reread to check any mistakes for ya
Even if this was not a planned out story, it has high potential. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing how this will all play out.
Well this story has got me interested. Keep it up!
me gusta
Awesome story so far!
One question though, how tall is ROVER in terms of feet/meters? I’m having trouble imagining how big he is compared to the ponies...
10437166
-the official size prompt is this. When compared to Ponies.
Adult Pony: 4 - 4.5ft. tall.
Foals: 2 - 3ft. tall.
-R.O.V.E.R (is basically twice the size of an African male lion.)
Height: 14.4ft. (head to feet)/Length: 21.5ft. (head to tip of tail)/Weight: 535lbs.
10437183
...
ROVER’s a big boy..
10437183
Holy cow, ROVER is a big robo cat
10437222
now you see why Twilight was scared when ROVER walked over to her.
10437217
E'Yup! helps to be big when you explore a new world, less animals would try and take a crack at you. most of the time.
opportunity rolls up to rover..
oppy: you have done well my son
So the machine is basically nicknamed 'Rover', but spelled R.O.V.E.R every single time in the text?
10446123
yes. story is like official documentary TV speech, while Rover or ROVER is pet name version.
10435466
I mean...when you're already a 14 foot tall science platform, putting a one-inch speaker somewhere isn't exactly a big ask. I'd hope at least one of these scientists with the capacity to tear open the fabric of reality would anticipate the possibility of first contact, even before they ported right in front of a very clear sign of civilization. Even if a language barrier exists, establishing that language exists is kind of a big deal -- much less things you don't need a foreign language to understand, like music.
Hell, this thing doesn't seem to have any defensive measures short of blasting an 18-inch hole through it. But any lifeform they encounter, up to and including the timberwolf they just shot to death, might be sapient -- and lethal measures might incur centuries of political fallout (even by shooting wildlife you might infringe on territorial hunting grounds). You know what would make a fantastic nonlethal deterrent to try first? Whatever your lead engineer has playing in his earbuds, but kicked up to 80 dB. Or any given roar in Monster Hunter.
Beware of the cute overload inside. Enter at your own risk
10460519
once the scientist have analyzed the written language of the ponies, and figure out how to verbally speak properly to the ponies, they will install a mic for communication purposes.
remember, the humans have come across 3 other worlds and through trial and error, the humans have given ROVER a set of guide-lines to follow when encountering with life forms. example: the ROVER didn't attack the timberwolves until they attacked it, and when it came in contact with the ponies, it observed that they were not acting like simple animals
Wait... two times bigger than a manticore? That's huge. Like, about the size of Fluttershy's Cottage huge. Ponies could stand underneath it it's that big.
10472846
I view the MLP Manticore to being the same size of a adult lion, that's why its twice the size.
I keep thinking of the green Runners from Generation Zero
cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/017/987/165/large/ville-ericsson-runner-front.jpg?1558091841
Hmm... This is alright. Could use a lot of editing though.