Project: Mars (Outdated)
"ToriGoat 343, this is Omega Station. Copy and respond."
"Omega, this is 343, copy. No current peculiarities."
Amanda Chorol, decked out in her white hazard space suit- or the 'Pufferfish' as some nauts affectionately referred to it -gave a good stretch. She'd been out in this seemingly random cave for days now, investigating for 'anything to indicate previous life'. Infuriatingly vague, but that was her job in a nutshell.
Proto-colonist, researcher and explorer, charged with finding whatever may remain of life on Mars. Not that there was a shortage of those like her; she recalled the last headcount at four hundred or so. That was nothing compared to the seven hundred something thousand colonists, a pipe dream only a couple decades ago.
Her mother told her all about the dreams of 2018 Earth, exploring the stars, meeting aliens and expanding into the Universe.
It seemed 'exploring the stars' consisted of a lot of sifting through red sand to find bacteria corpses, but she loved it anyway.
"Still can't believe you called yourself 'ToriGoat'. That game died way long ago. You're a 2015 hipster, Maymay," her fellow naut remarked. Justin could be charitably called 'laid-back', which made him annoying to work with in an environment where not having your helmet perfectly screwed on was death.
Amanda grinned. "Says you, 'RadDood 420.' I don't even know how you passed that by Omega." She bent to one knee, checking out a patch of sand that read with higher moisture than the surrounding dunes. She pulled out a microanalyzer, sifting for any trace of water, a resource that Earth might take for granted, but nauts and colonists like herself held in higher value than any gold or gems.
"I'm just that cool a guy, they couldn't pass me up. You know anybody else who could multiply fractions in their head?" Justin, or 'RadDood', decided putting his hands on his hips and striking a dramatic pose was more important than his actual job: she collected the sand, he looked at it real closely.
"Many, actually." Amanda lifted up the analyzer, then blinked. 2.7 percent H2O. That was actually noteworthy. She collected more of the local sand, also finding trace methane and carbon- an excellent sign. This trip might not have been completely worthless. "Justin, take this pod; it's got more water than we have in our dorm fountains."
He snickered. "Not much of an achievement." Regardless, he grabbed one of the specimen containers, and they both stood up, stretched, and headed back to the buggy.
Amanda tapped on her helmet. "Omega, this is 343. Copy."
The receiver in her suit flared to life, echoing the voice of her local supervisor. "343, this is Omega, copy. What have you found?"
"Sand at Kin Cove, 2.7 percent H2O, trace methane, dubious carbon."
She could practically hear the supervisor's eyes widen. "Copy 343, we'll get the scopes ready. Head back before sunset."
"343 copies. Out."
Amanda took a look around her before heading to the buggy. She was one of the 'lucky' ones assigned to a natural cave, as opposed to random dunes, mountains or dormant volcanos. Theoretically, life was more likely here, due to having more protection from solar winds and planetary storms.
Theoretically. Life likelihood was very relative when the gravity was less than half Earth's, and there was literally no magnetic field. But whatever. Of course, that was more a problem for humans and Earth life in general; any previous life on Mars had probably adapted.
Amanda hopped down from the crag she'd been investigating, looking further into the red cavern. One might think being able to jump higher and weigh less was a positive of low gravity, but the fact she had to exercise like an Olympian every week just to maintain baseline health dampened that. Mars gravity was like snow: cool in small amounts and for a short time, annoying or even lethal if you had to live in it.
Her inner thoughts were suddenly blasted through the noggin when she clipped a rock that, to this day, she swears placed itself there on purpose. She flailed over the cave's mouth, bonking constantly into the walls and a couple stalactites- though the gravity she had just nagged was now weakening the impacts significantly.
She finally came to a stop in the cove, on her hands and knees. She felt a tad sore, but nothing seemed to be broken or dislocated, far as she could tell.
Justin came down far more gracefully, helping her stand. "That was a big tumble, sister. Suit torn, bubble cracked?"
Amanda ran a gloved hand over her suit, seeing if there were any spots it could slip in. With that and the fact she wasn't currently suffocating on an ocean of CO2, she guessed the suit was holding up. "Suit intact, though my pride is now in tatters."
Finally stood up, she looked around the cave roof for a moment. Typically stone spiky things. She shrugged, waved Justin along, and splashed back to the mouth.
She checked the analyzer to make sure it hadn't busted. Nope, looks like it-
Wait, splashed?
Amanda looked at her feet. Sure enough, just below her boots, there was a thin puddle of... Something. Could it be..?
She entered 'science mode', kneeling down and filling the analyzer's tub with the liquid, tossing out whatever remained of the sand. That didn't matter.
Waiting... Waiting... It was H2O.
They'd just found liquid water on Mars. Filled with dirt, sand, and perchlorates, yes, but still water.
She gave the loudest whoop she'd ever done, unfortunately muffled by the helmet. Justin gave her a look, until he took a look at the analyzer, and he too threw his hands up. He immediately tapped his bubble, activating the radio. "Omega, this is 420. You won't believe this..."
While Justin contacted their local base, Amanda trudged through the cave a bit more. Finding actual water was already a massive boon, but who knew? There might be something else neat in here.
Her interest was rewarded when, while walking, she tripped again. She caught herself this time, which resulted in her staring at the ground.
Right at what looked like a shovel blade.
She couldn't help what happened next, frantically digging away the red mud and dirt around the shovel, until she'd unearthed the entire thing.
Definitely a shovel. But, who could've-
She looked around, seeing more pieces of objects embedded in the ground. She dug them up too.
An alarm clock, a ratty handkerchief, a crystal glass... What was all this doing here? She knew for a fact no nauts had been here before she and Justin... From Earth.
Which meant-
She felt a hand at her shoulder. "Maymay, you good? That fall knock a screw loose?"
Her only response was to point at the collection of items- artifacts, if her guess was right.
-----
After Amanda and Justin had packed the dirty relics into the buggy and collected more muddy water from the cave, they'd drove straight back to Omega. The drive was silent- neither of the nauts had much to say, they'd been shocked as is from their discovery.
Omega, after their initial paralyzed silence, had told them to bring the objects to R&D, and the water to Bio.
Given a few days, the paleos had discovered that the shovel, rag, clock and such were, at a rough estimate, around four billion years old. The question of how the heck anything had survived this long was still in the air.
Omega had said it wasn't "definitive proof of life on Mars before", because objects were not technically remains, but they all knew.
Amanda flopped into an armchair, exhaling. Making two groundshattering discoveries in a single day- within minutes of each other -took a toll on one's energy, both physical and mental.
She took a sip of her Fanta while thinking. There was something strange about the artifacts- well, besides the fact they were found on Mars, anyway.
The shovel... Looked like it wasn't made for hands. None of her crew could comfortably hold it, so it was made for some other mechanism. That made sense enough, but what really lingered was, when they were scanned...
Somehow, fingerprints had remained on the objects. Or, to better put it, hoofprints.
That stuck in her mind. How was there something even remotely resembling a horse on Mars? Sure, they now knew life had existed on Mars at some point, but... A horse?
-Two Weeks Later-
Amanda found herself in yet another cave, assuredly different from the identical-looking one from her earlier mission. Because this one was a couple million years older or the like. Uh-huh.
Regardless, she genuinely enjoyed toddling through the endless maroon wastes to find random junk. She couldn't picture doing anything else- she had the right mixture of resolve, intellect, and insanity to be a naut, and a colony explorer at that.
Which, taken into account, still did not make trying to find more lost artifacts or ruins easier. She had been assigned without Justin this time- because after the last mission, she was obviously far more capable on her own -and so it took much longer to find anything of note.
Weren't nauts always supposed to be in pairs at minimum, for safety reasons? Maybe Omega was just jealous of her.
Mist kicking up behind her suited feet, Amanda held yet another analyzer, though this one coded specifically to look for rare metals one may use to build electronics. It hadn't worked, though Amanda didn't expect it to. Going from shovels to, say, computers was a massive leap. Even if this precursor society had simple tools (that somehow remained virtually mint for eons), that didn't immediately imply they were as advanced as humanity.
She bounced along the internal organs of the cave, this one just as dry as the rest of Mars. Omega had been extremely insistent on looking for any signs of water- Amanda had bitten back her tongue on explaining why water did not instantly indicate life, and why the absence of such did not imply the opposite.
She could still hear Omega's voice in her head: 343, you need to keep an eye out for water. There was H2O where you found the relics, so it stands to reason this society needed it.
Correlation does not equal causation. But Omega liked listening to themselves talk, so, here she was.
Unlike last time, she didn't fall bombastically over herself on a pebble. No, this time she fell bombastically over herself on nothing but thin air.
Luckily, she managed to regain her stance without aid- frick you, Justin -and wobbled into a cove wall. Ah, the nice smooth feel of the wall to-
Wait just a popcorn-popping minute. Smooth?
The deja vu was not lost on her, but she didn't immediately call Omega. Both because she didn't want a false alarm, and because the 'I told you so' was too much to bear.
Amanda followed along the cave wall, switching on her helm light. It revealed what was definitely not a natural rock- it was purple, and white, and gold? Where in the world did polished gold come-
Nevermind, she knew. Yep, a bit 'I told you so' was target locked and aimed straight at her face. She was ecstatic for the incoming lecture.
But that wasn't enough for Amanda Chorol, oh no. She had to be certain. So she tracked her gloved hands along the ruined surface, running the analyzer along it. Besides gold, iron, zinc, and a bit of platinum, it didn't find anything particularly strange, but she wasn't done.
Amanda continued running her hands along the wall. She didn't know exactly what she was looking for, but she knew it would be cool.
After a solid five minutes of this, her mouth increasingly turned downward. Still nothing, and now she was starting to feel like an idiot. Maybe it was time to-
click
Jackpot.
Her fingers slipped into what seemed like an indent in the wall; a piece of the smooth metal and stone pressed inward.
As she stepped back for a larger look, she could hear the sounds of rusty gears and machinery clacking and cranking against each other. The wall that was solid a moment ago was now- well, still solid, but it moved out of the way, revealing a gloomy black space.
She stepped forth.
-----
After what she would say was hours of walking down a dusty, ancient-looking staircase, Amanda finally reached an edge. Not the bottom of the stairs, but a literal edge, being greedily gluttonously gorged on by the gloomy darkness.
Checking that the rope and hook were still secured in her pack, Amanda decided to take a gamble, and leapt off the summit.
She sailed through the gallons of black, through who knew how many feet, before slamming into a smooth metal floor.
Now she was getting somewhere.
With her helm light still activated, she swung her head around the cavern. The walls and ceiling were a cold, navy blue stone with virtually no imperfections, streams of silver and gold dancing erratically throughout.
It was mesmerizing.
She clomped through the spacious former building, trying to find any hint of a door, hatch- anything.
Her wishes were answered when she came across a door made of purple stained wood, again lined with streaks of silver. It was locked tight into the doorway, but strangely, seemed to have no visible doorknob or opening mechanisms. Did the former society lift things with their minds? It seemed silly, but...
Seeing as she did not have psychic powers, Amanda decided to use the tried and true method.
She rammed the door with her shoulder. Amazingly, there were basically no marks on the door, not even the slightest of indents or cracks.
She did it again.
-----
After a solid five minutes of this, and an exceptionally sore shoulder, the door finally gave up, swinging inwards.
She checked her light's battery- enough for roughly another hour. Hopefully this building wasn't too giant.
She again ran her hands along the walls, though not for any particular purpose. The make and color of the stone hadn't changed at all, which likely meant this was just another section of the same room, as opposed to another altogether.
Or the former builders were just lazy.
Her absent mind led her to bumping into a table. She gave it a look and-
It wasn't a table. It was a coffin.
The moral dilemma of disturbing a possibly billions year old alien corpse bothered Amanda for about three seconds, before she threw open the lid.
A skeleton.
Amanda circled the casket a few times, peering at the who-knew-how old corpse. She knew (or guessed) it was a skeleton, considering it was white, hard to the touch, and the pieces of it were all separate from each other. She could be wrong, but she wasn't an expert in alien skeleton biology.
Alien horse skeleton, for that matter. It had all the marks- four legs, flat teeth (although a few canines put that in doubt), and-
Her horse theory was suddenly adrift. For one, the thing didn't seem to have hooves- its legs just.., ended. For another, it had a horn sprouting out of its forehead.
A literal unicorn on Mars.
Amanda almost pinched herself to see if she was dreaming, but didn't for many reasons.
One of which being her suit was already grumpy about the door-ramming thing; it likely wouldn't appreciate that.
She wandered around the room, and saw more and more coffins. Seeing as she'd already done it once, she opened each one.
Every single one was a unicorn. This was a crypt for unicorns.
A unicrypt.
If nothing else, this was solid, concrete, undeniable proof that something had lived on Mars at some point. It looked like both she and Omega would have something to be proud of.
Speaking of, her radio beeped with a transmission.
"ToriGoat 343, this is Omega Station. Where are you? You haven't answered our call in a half hour. Copy and respond."
She tapped her helm. "Omega, this is 343. I investigated that cave, and... well, I think it's better you see for yourself," she said while glancing at another unicorn corpse.
-Three Weeks Later-
Hundreds of crypts, catacombs, tombs, whatever.
Hundreds.
Lying down on her cot, Amanda had to laugh, at herself and humanity. All this time they'd been looking for microscopic beings, when there were- if she recalled properly -at least thousands of previous beings on Mars.
In what may have been a gold rather than red desert at some point, they found similar skeletons to the unicorns Amanda discovered, though these had no horn, and she could've sworn their bones were striped.
Near a dormant volcano, remains of what she adamantly called 'dragons' were unearthed. How could she not? They were twice the size of a human, had claws, spiked spines and heads- they were definitely dragons. It made sense, considering she'd found unicorns- Mars had apparently been a fantasy land.
Skeletons with a strange twin-pronged horn, what looked like grossly oversized dogs, and undoubtedly yak and buffalo cadavers- the search for life on Mars had gone from fruitless to overwhelming within a single day.
She hadn't paid much attention to the reaction on Earth- she knew they were receiving a much larger influx of colonists and nauts, and some religion calling the Martian corpses 'dead gods' had formed, but that was about it.
Trying to live on a dead planet left little room for that.
She tossed and turned in her cot. Despite finally finding life (or remnants of it), despite having succeeded in her job, despite having enough money and fame at this point to live like a celebrity, she still wasn't satisfied.
There was something gnawing, nagging, clawing at her mind.
The tools.
The lack of decay on the skeletons might be explained by an absence of bacteria, but how in the world did an alarm clock survive over a billion years? It made zero sense. They hadn't found anything strange with the materials- they were made much like analog alarm clocks on Earth, which was sort of creepy in itself.
But how? Amanda felt, knew she was missing something.
And it might be where she found the crypt.
Rolling off her cot, Amanda decided to do something immensely stupid- exploration at night. It was dangerous, nobody would know where she was, and she'd have basically no aid if things went wrong- which they probably would.
Regardless, she got dressed, had a quick 'breakfast', and suited up.
She made sure to take a spare O2 tank and mask, just in case, along with the rope and hook from last time. She also packed a small blanket for... well, she didn't really know. Just felt like it.
She stepped out, sat in the rover, and drove.
-----
The explorers after Amanda had never bothered to close the crypt door. Not that they really could- she'd only gotten in in the first place by smashing it.
She ignored the empty coffins this time, focusing on the walls. Considering how she'd discovered the crypt initially, it stood to reason there could be more false bricks, leading to more abandoned structures.
This would be tedious, but she was ready for it. Amanda began the exceptionally slow and boring task of running her hands over every single brick in the room, one by one.
She was fully prepared for this to take minutes, even hours. She knew it was unl-
click
She shut her mental mouth.
Once again, the wall next to the false brick split open, vibrating and grinding against the floor, throwing up veritable lakes of red dust.
Taking a deep breath, Amanda headed down yet another creepy staircase.
Down, down and down.
Something struck her- the make of this staircase was much different to the crypt. While the tomb was vibrant and colorful with blues, purples, gold and silver even after so much aging...
This place was grey. An unfeeling, immovable grey.
She hit the bottom.
Unlike the crypt, there was no entrance, no decoration, no nothing. Whatever this secret (or extra secret) room was built for, it was probably rushed and frantic. Much like an apocalypse bunker, it held nothing but pure function.
Whatever that was.
Amanda was more careful this time- she couldn't be so reckless, considering nobody even knew she was down here. If she tore a hole in her suit...
Well, better not to think about it.
If she could smell the air, she was certain it would be thick with dust and basically unbreathable. Her light didn't extend more than five feet, the dust was that thick. Even moving felt more straining. This place very well may have not been touched since it was built.
Until now, anyway.
Through the utter black and grime, she spotted a hint of light blue.
Stepping over, she saw what could only be described as Matrix-like pods along the wall. There were about a dozen, and most were completely empty, containing only some strange mechanisms she had no reference for.
There was a singular pod, containing...
Well, it looked like one of the unicorns Amanda had discovered weeks ago. Except it had wings. And was purple.
And was not a skeleton.
The significance of this took several seconds to actually bulldoze into Amanda's brain. An intact one of the species! Or, something close to it. This upped the game on so many levels, she almost didn't notice a tiny green light flash on the pod.
Then it opened.
And the creature fell out.
The purple pegasus/unicorn/horse thing slapped onto the rock floor, and promptly began gasping for air, along with shivering violently.
This told Amanda three things:
1. It was alive.
2. It needed air (though what kind of gas, she had no clue), which the Martian atmosphere was not.
3. It was currently freezing to death.
Her survival training kicked in her instincts- she scooped up the horse in one arm, grabbed the blanket out of her pack and wrapped the horse up, and frantically set up the O2 mask and tank.
She obviously had no clue if any of the three things she'd guessed were true- it might not be alive, just jittering like frog legs might. It might not breathe O2, and she'd just killed it faster. It might not be cold, shivering could indicate so many other things.
She was right the first time.
The horse began breathing... not normally, because Amanda had no clue what that looked like, but it seemed to stabilize. It also slowed the shivering drastically.
It opened its eyes, and looked up at Amanda.
It was almost cute, if not for the fact its eyes were filled with terror and confusion.
But apparently it was intelligent, because it took one look around the empty room, looked at the O2 mask and blanket, and decided not to freak out, which Amanda couldn't have been happier for.
Now what to do? Well, getting it back to the station seemed like a good idea. Amanda had no way of knowing if that would work, but it was a plan, and plans were important in a survival situation.
She almost tried to soothe the petrified alien, until realizing that it wouldn't be able to hear anything through Amanda's helmet. Saved until they got back to the station, then.
She headed back to the rover, alien horse thing in her arm.
I think I may be abusing the "Mystery" tag. 
On another note, I originally intended this chapter to be the only one, but I'm also tempted to do one showing the slow decay of Equus, and another (in no particular order) showing Twilight meeting the Mars colonists and... well, I have no clue.
Lemme know which you'd prefer!
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I am interested in seeing you take this further. To know what happened in the final days of Equis to become what it apparently is now, would be really interesting.
I am just excited to read more. So...you do you...
Nothing worse, then being the last one to survive.
Love the whole Idea here and the mystery behind it.
I honestly would love it to see the build up with Twilight and the colonists, as bits and pieces start to connect with what happened with equiss, as that adds to the mystery of it all, which I'm a sucker for.
But it's entirely up to you mate.
I’d love to see more. This is such a cool concept and there’s so much you could do with it.
Hey man that's a really great story. Please do more
I have not enough words to express how much I like to read more of this work.
So the suspension of disbelief?
Give more. Also, where Twilight
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Thank y'all for the feedback! I'm already writing the next chapter as we speak; it'll come out to three total. The one posted, one for the immediate aftermath, and one showing what happened to lead to Purple Smart being in that pod.
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I suppose SoD applies to FiM automatically, so my note was kinda redundant.
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Er... she was the one in the pod.
https://i.imgur.com/uu9pmDP.gif
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Sorry lol brain dead lemme reread
edit: reread it my brain was stupid and didn't register purple horse as Twilight
Um, I have a question.
Will there be some kind of language barrier thingy?
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You'll find out in the next chapter.
Spoiler: Yes, there is.
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Noice.
This is a really interesting concept! I'm curious (and a wary) to know what happened to Equus and its peoples, as well as if there were any other survivors. The latter seems highly unlikely, but hey. (Also, I notice a curious absence of pegasi remains; changelings, I could see, bc it's debatable whether or not they even have bones, being insectoid creatures; what happened to the pegasi, though? Or have they just not been found yet? Because I've noticed an absence of some of the more strange creatures from beyond Equestria, too, like those weird shark dudes and lizard people and Abyssinians, and ofc the harpies (aka the parrot pirate people). Granted, that's a lot of species, so it's expected that they might not have found them all... Also, a possible concept for changelings: of all the species on Equus, they are the most likely to be able to survive a slow decay, seeing as they can shapeshift, and sustain themselves mainly through the love that they have for each other; adaptation is literally the name of the game, so is it possible to find them around somewhere still?)
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Thank you!
The reason I didn't list off pegasi remains, Abyssians, etc, is because I figured readers would get annoyed if I listed off 60 different skeletons being found. I think just saying that remains of known MLP species were discovered is enough to get the point across; you can extrapolate that they also found pegasi, Earth Pony, and other corpses. I just didn't include it for the sake of brevity.
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Ah, fair enough! You had listed off quite a lot so I was a lil confused, is all. If you'd listed off every one it'd probably take up the bulk of the story, hue.
Holy Mother of Intrigue, Flat-man! This has me very, very interested. (Added to Ongoing Favorites.)
"On another note, I originally intended this chapter to be the only one, but I'm also tempted to do one showing the slow decay of Equus, and another (in no particular order) showing Twilight meeting the Mars colonists and... well, I have no clue."
Some writers would enjoy writing chapters that alternate between the first option (time period or era) and the second. Maybe sometimes it's harder to make that work really well though? The decision is up to you, isn't it?
this is a fantastic oneshot, but this could easily be a whole fic, hot damn, I love it.
Can't wait for next chapter
I wonder if others survived. Twilight was in her pod, but there must have been other hibernation rooms around Equus.
I could see her trying to terraform mars. Or maybe now that she has time, some time travel to prevent the calamity... Maybe not enough time for that if this is truly only a 3-chapter fic though.
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Well maybe time travel couldn't prevent it... But whatnot before the calamity a rash of "disappearances" happened and Twilight was behind them?
I'm really glad this is now no-longer a one-shot!
This is a cool story
Problem with Twilight hitting Martian atmosphere: it's effectively close enough to a vacuum that her blood would boil.
Not as crazy as Arnold in "Total Recall", but quite bad enough.
Even in the absolute deepest basin on Mars, the atmospheric density is just barely over the triple point of water and only about 1% the density of Earth's (in Hellas Planitia).