Hand of the Ancients

by Starscribe

Chapter 6

Lyra was frozen in her seat, utterly motionless in a timeless space. She could see nothing with her eyes, not feel the chair she was sitting in—but it wasn’t sensory deprivation.

The process proceeded in a series of rhythmic pauses and starts, freezing her in darkness for time she couldn’t measure before returning her to the bridge surrounded by stars and her confused friends.

Could they even feel it? Bon Bon was standing beside her, and she was speaking. But her words seemed to come an infinity apart. “I… really… think… you… should… try… to… pressure… Computer…”

She tried to catch a glimpse of Time Turner and Muffins. The pegasus had noticed as little of what was going on as Bon Bon. But Time Turner. His mouth hung open, eyes unfocused. Maybe he was seeing something like what she was, located just beyond the furthermost edge of the ship.

As the Equestria passed along its strange course, her mind grew increasingly unfocused to the changes in position. Her head stopped pounding, and the glimpse outside during each moment in real space was no longer empty blackness.

She “saw” her friends in that space, though not as ponies. They were clusters of… order, surrounded by a diffuse sea of evenly distributed chaos. The Equestria itself made ripples in that sea, then submerged under its surface and returned to the real world.

“…to be more reasonable with its demands,” Bon Bon continued, this time without interruption. “It can’t fly without ponies to crew it, we know that. We’re really the ones with the power here. We could demand it return to Equestria and promise it a qualified crew when we get there. Wouldn’t that be fair?”

The stars visible from just outside the window shifted and twisted as they had during each jump. But this time the change was more than just surface level—this time the changes were distinct enough that even her companions noticed.

“Great trot.” Time Turner spun to stare at the front of the bridge, and the massive dark spot that obscured most of the sky. It was like standing at the base of the vastest possible mountain but extending in both directions. But not a solid wall, because it was actually made of thousands of pieces floating out there, each one ten thousand times the size of Canterlot. And in the center was a star, though it wasn’t much bigger than it would’ve been in the sky down on Equus.

“Celestia preserve us.” Sweetie dropped to the floor, eyes going wide. “What is…”

“Transit report: arrival at Sector 0: 0 mark 0 after 38 seconds and transit entropy of 8%. I’m getting a signal from the Conflux now. Will update when it has been parsed.”

“Is it broken?” Muffins asked. “There are so many pieces.”

“No,” Computer answered. “At the time of its construction, no material sufficiently durable to construct a Dyson sphere had been discovered. The Conflux was constructed from a number of segments, which collectively harvest much of the star’s output. The majority of the segments you see are reflectors made of foil thinner than your skin. Only the occupied sections are larger.”

“We’re going to talk to the ones who built this?” Lyra asked. “That’s why we’re here?”

“No,” Computer answered, without emotion. “They’re long gone. We can, however, communicate with the system they left behind. Or… I’m trying.” Now there was anger in its voice, more than there had been after anything they had said or done. “Curious. The Conflux is in an isolated maintenance loop. Communication with external systems is… This is stupid. One moment.” Computer went quiet.

Lyra finally rose from her chair, walking a little closer to the screen and squinting forward at the star concealed in a thin sphere vaster than her mind could contemplate.

“Are these the ponies you want to upset, Sweetie Drops? Do you really think Equestria could benefit from… anything other than friendship with them?”

Bon Bon ground her teeth together, finally looking away from the projection of what was outside. “I’d be happier about being friends with them if they hadn’t”—she pointed back at Lyra—“done that. Transformation magic is inconsiderate, maybe illegal.”

“I would’ve volunteered,” Time Turner said. “If this was the reward.” He turned towards the elevator. “Muffins, would you be willing to accompany me downstairs? I think I’d like to procure our cameras for immediate use.”

“Sure!” she said, beaming at him. “I like taking pictures.” They left; the metal door hissed closed behind them. Leaving Lyra and Sweetie alone again.

For a few moments, there was silence, letting Lyra contemplate the image in front of her. There was something out there in the void, a speck of green that she’d first thought was a star.

But no, stars didn’t come in that color. She reached out, almost like she could pluck it from the screen—and the screen panned, zooming in on the speck until it filled the space in front of them.

It was a planet, like she’d thought. It had its own cloud surrounding it, a cloud of uneven looking chunks that rotated around it in ways much less purposeful than the star. But there was bright green down there, and crisp blue oceans, and comfortable white clouds.

Text in Old Ponish appeared beside it.

Earth (Sol 3)
5.972 x 10^24kg
Atmosphere: 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, 1% Trace Gasses
Population: 1.78 Trillion
ERROR. READINGS INCONSISTENT WITH PROJECTIONS

Reconcile with active scan?
Yes No

“Does this feel…” Sweetie began, whispering quietly beside her. “Does any of this feel real to you? It’s like… I expect to wake up back in Equestria at any moment, back in our cabin. We can’t have gone this far, really. Another star? It’s not possible.”

“Then what are we looking at?”

She hesitated. “Some kind of… illusion? Recording? I’ve seen advanced illusion magic before. I bet an Alicorn-level caster could make a spell like this.”

“Okay, but why?” Lyra pressed. “Why transform me into…” She held out one of her body’s strange hands, flexing its delicate fingers one at a time. The sensation still confused and amused her each time she tried it. “Why this? And magical elevators, and lights, and a talking building, and—” She shook her head. “In archeology, we have a principle of least assumptions. Eventually we pass the point where this is all a clever ruse and it makes more sense to just be what it says it is.”

“For me that doesn’t happen until I have my hooves on the ground again,” Bon Bon said, eyes fixing on the sphere in front of them. “There, maybe? I’ll know Equus when we go back to it. I’d know it if we landed somewhere else instead.”

“Well you’re in luck,” Computer interrupted. Despite its silence during their conversation thus far, it had apparently been listening to every word. “I managed to extract some information from the Conflux, though it wasn’t easy. I’m afraid it isn’t good, Captain.”

Lyra raised an eyebrow, turning slightly. She kept expecting Computer to be standing behind her. It talked so much like a pony, though it wasn’t ‘real.’ “I thought all we had to do was visit the homeworld, then we could go home with the answers we wanted. This is the homeworld, isn’t it?”

“Well…” Computer trailed off. “Technically our responsibility was to report to the Conflux. But it’s in safety lockdown and refuses to take my report. We’ll have to deliver it manually at one of the external nodes. But don’t worry, one of them is in-system!”

The image panned out again, until it showed the vast wall of interlocking plates, all orbiting past each other in their slow dance. Lyra felt a slight movement through her strange feet, and suddenly the little planet was at the center of their screen.

“Earth itself has one. I’m getting a green response, even if the rest of the planet isn’t… great.”

Lyra barely even felt the acceleration pushing them forward, but she could tell they were moving. At some vast speed, based on how quickly the screen planet was growing in front of them. Hundreds of times faster than the rainbow barrier.

“There’s a hole in your star-container,” Bon Bon said, glancing to the left. “Did you break it?”

Lyra hadn’t even seen it, but she followed her eyes, and sure enough. The layers always seemed to drift apart when they got close to the planet, closing in again as soon as they were past it. As they got closer, the Equestria flew into that corridor, and the screen was briefly washed out with concentrated energy.

“No,” Computer said, returning to its usual neutral tone. “Those living on the Earth enjoyed sunshine rather than freezing to death. Unfortunately it appears the number living there is…” It sighed, almost exactly as a pony would. “I was hoping it would have been recolonized by now. Engaging defensive systems. Debris cloud in fifteen seconds.”

The lights all around them went suddenly red, and Lyra took a moment for her eyes to adjust. None of what Computer had just said made sense, except for one central fact. “Will you take us home now, Computer?”

“I can,” it said. “As soon as you deliver the report on your planet. I am taking us down for a landing. Still searching for viable path to the node.”

Bon Bon stared out at the approaching wall of metal. Not large pieces like the ones around the star, these were more like sparkles in the dark. Sparkles with jagged edges, spinning in wild, disorderly paths. “Sooner or later we have to decide to tell it no, Heartstrings.”

“Do we?” she asked. “I mean…”

The ship started to shake. A faint bubble appeared outside it, invisible until objects struck up against it. Each one was a silent explosion, deforming it slightly and expanding in a cloud of smaller debris. From somewhere far below them, Lyra heard a faint whining. “Impact compensators at 30%… 50%… 70%…”

Something huge struck into their left side, and this time Lyra was nearly knocked off her feet. She stumbled to the side, catching herself on Bon Bon’s sturdy frame before she could go down completely. The pony with all four legs on the ground was able to keep her footing just fine, to Lyra’s envy.

“We’re through!” The bubble vanished from around them, blue sky appeared below them. There was no distinct boundary, just blackness around that transitioned steadily to blue. As they got closer, bright orange appeared below, outlining the same bubble that had been visible before. “Landing site detected. Approach vector locked in.”

Bon Bon turned; one eyebrow raised.

Lyra blushed, realizing she was still clinging to her friend. She stood up, hastily brushing her uniform straight again. “Right, right. We’re okay. All we have to do is deliver a report for you, Computer? That’s it?”

“That’s it,” it responded. Outside, the blur of green resolved into a distinct continent, overcome with what looked like a single massive jungle. “I can get you down onto the ground less than two kilometers from the entrance.”

“But when we’re finished, you change her back?” Bon Bon demanded. “No more shifting the goal every time we do something.”

“Not until you acquire a replacement captain. I can see that you are unhappy about your current physical differences, crewman. I could alter you as well. Then you and the captain would not be so different anymore.”

Bon Bon’s ears flattened, her tail tucking between her legs. Whatever objections she might’ve had turned into mumbled shame.

The elevator door hissed open, and Time Turner emerged, dragging along a tripod and carrying a camera. Poor Muffins had several tins of film slung over her shoulders, which she could clearly barely lift. “We’re… here…” she squeaked.

“We’re not in space anymore?” Time Turner asked, his voice downcast. “But we were only gone twenty minutes.”

“We’ll be back soon enough,” Lyra said, turning to face him. “How would you like to come with me onto an alien planet?”

“Is that even a question?” He set the camera down on a nearby chair, dropping the tripod completely. “Muffins, forget the video film. We’ll grab the stills from downstairs before we go out.”

She slumped to the floor, metal clattering around her. “Oh.”

Comments

[Frazikar]

🎼 So close, so close, and yet so far away ...

[minibox]

Welcome to Earth, where apparently your greatest dreams (and nightmares) come true.

We could demand it return to Equestria and promise it a qualified crew when we get there.

At this point, you're already the most qualified crew. Can't imagine Lyra liking being replaced either.

“At the time of its construction, no material sufficiently durable to construct a Dyson sphere had been discovered. The Conflux was constructed from a number of segments, which collectively harvest much of the star’s output. The majority of the segments you see are reflectors made of foil thinner than your skin. Only the occupied sections are larger.”

It must be terrifying to see the "ponies" of the past construct something you can only begin to speculate its function for. Let's hope that megastructure is incapable of producing a Nicoll-Dyson beam. I can't imagine anything but incoherent screaming coming from our crew if something like that is revealed.

“Are these the ponies you want to upset, Sweetie Drops? Do you really think Equestria could benefit from… anything other than friendship with them?”

All the ponies want for you to do is give them a minute of their time. Even if there aren't any left.

“There, maybe? I’ll know Equus when we go back to it. I’d know it if we landed somewhere else instead.”

Depends on whether Equus was actually terraformed to resemble Earth. If it does and if jumps are as easy as that, I can't imagine Equestria not using the ship to set up as many outposts or colonies as possible. They have a whole planet at their hooves. Equestria's neighbors will truly be jealous.

“We’ll be back soon enough,” Lyra said, turning to face him. “How would you like to come with me onto an alien planet?”

“Is that even a question?”

It's not even a question for Bonbon, regardless of her feelings.

[FridayPie]

Hmm, this type of construct had a name... something-something a swarm. Solar Swarm?

[Cross Lament]

10595031
"Dyson Swarm", usually.

[FridayPie]

10595677
Dyson defined swarm a set of independent sattelites orbiting sun, emphasis on orbiting. Something with average density less than Earth wouldn''t orbin sun with same period, leaving syncronous gap. Dyson Bubbles, etc. are made of statites, solar sail platforms, they are just floating above the star surface. Neither sounds like a match for described one.

[MrZJunior]

10594963

Depends on whether Equus was actually terraformed to resemble Earth. If it does and if jumps are as easy as that, I can't imagine Equestria not using the ship to set up as many outposts or colonies as possible. They have a whole planet at their hooves. Equestria's neighbors will truly be jealous.

Seeing as human Lyra and the ponies don't seem to have any issue sharing an atmosphere and environment, I suspect Equestria has a very similar environment to Earth. Or at least Earth of the past. Who knows what has happened to it in the intervening millennia.