Friendship One

by BRBrony9

There And Back Again

One year until G-Day.

That was what some were calling it. The G stood for Gamma, of course.

The past few years had been hard on Equestrian society. Though there had been no more riots, the functioning wheels of a nation were slowly breaking down and crumbling, just as King Grissom had predicted. Equestrians were weary, hollowed out by living in constant morbid fear of the future. Suicide rates had skyrocketed, an epidemic of hangings and brain matter smeared on bedroom ceilings by single gunshots. Suicide was, for the past year, the second most common cause of death, right behind heart disease. Many ponies had reached the end of their tether, sick of every waking moment being dominated by G-Day, listless and broken, jobless, worthless.

The economy had crashed, despite the best efforts of the central bank and treasury department. The closer G-Day came, the less desire ponies had to go out and work. Inflation caused by the Griffons slapping huge tariffs on every export meant nopony could afford to buy much anyway. Even essential services were affected by the shortage in workers, and big cities like Manehattan and Canterlot could suffer several rolling blackouts in a single day. It could take half an hour to summon a fire truck when your house was burning. Your post might arrive several weeks late, if it ever came. The only things truly functioning at full capacity were the military and Project Rebirth.

The interior of Friendship One was almost completed. The crew were undergoing intensive training, for first they had to become Equinauts. Everypony aboard would have to know exactly what they were doing, and be able to perform multiple roles to a decent degree of competence. A flight surgeon would have some rudimentary knowledge of operating the ships' controls, an engineer might learn how to work in the hydroponics bay, and so on.

The selection process had been rigorous. Likely candidates had been processed, selected, screened, re-screened, security checked, double-checked and triple-checked, and then requested to attend a training camp at the ESEA's Baltimare assembly facility. Some were obscure scientists- biologists, geneticists, agricultural engineers- but a few were well-known to the general public. Colonel- now promoted to General- Spitfire, the mission's commander, was chief among those names. An experienced Equinaut, Spitfire had been a combat pilot and commander of the Wonderbolts, the elite flight-demonstration jet squadron, before being selected to join the Equinaut Corps and flying two missions to the space stations and three to the moon. As a grizzled veteran of spaceflight and of leadership positions, Spitfire was an ideal candidate to be mission commander for Friendship One, as a joint military-ESEA project.

Once the mission-critical roles had been filled- commander, chief engineer, astronavigator and so on- thought turned to how to populate the rest of the ship, and thus, their new home, should the grand experiment go to plan. That was a more complex process. A national lottery of sorts was devised, with each citizen of Equestria being given a number. The allocation for each race- Unicorn, Earth and Pegasus- was identical, so that there would be a good spread of genetic diversity among the crew. Considerably smaller numbers were allocated to Zebras and Yaks, while an even smaller percentage of 'seats' were assigned to Griffons. This was simply because Kingdom of Griffonia wanted nothing to do with the process, and so the ESEA only had a small stock to choose from, those Griffons who were citizens of Equestria.

Their numbers were drawn and their records checked. If they possessed no obvious disqualifying features, such as a long criminal record, weak heart, or balance problems, they were sent an official, sealed letter by direct courier (the postal system being hardly trustworthy any longer). A medical examination, psychiatric screening, and other tests would then be administered once they arrived at the Baltimare camp, now something of a tent city beside the vast, curved hangars and assembly buildings. If they passed, and were willing to undergo the necessary training, they were in the programme.

There were naturally numerous rejections. Many ponies wanted to stay with their loved ones, or were scared of space travel, or thought the position should go to somepony more qualified. There were plenty of qualified ponies who had been specifically chosen, however- doctors, physicists, botanists, engineers, teachers, mining experts and the like, every specialty that you would need to create a self-sustaining colony. However, as one of the mission planners put it, you didn't want your colony to consist entirely of space-nerds because then you would 'end up with a colony, and thus a species, with more than its fair share of mental disorders and capable of being bullied by every alien who might want our lunch money.' That was where the ponies chosen at random from the lottery came in, bringing a wide range of talents, personalities, and traits to the table.

While all this had been going on, and the clock had been ticking down toward G-Day, there had been one more crucially important flight. A shuttle, with no modifications save its crew, had been launched. The seven unicorns aboard had been given a simple task, one familiar to test pilots down through the ages; see how fast you could make the damn thing go.

Scientists had theorised that, as well as pushing the ship forward, magic could, perhaps, be used both as a shield and as a kind of quantum bubble. This hope, vague though it had been, was what had given Celestia the impetus to start Project Rebirth in the first place, because it was the only way the ship could ever achieve a speed sufficient to outrun the gamma ray burst. The shielding effect would protect from micrometeorite impacts and interstellar cosmic radiation, and the bubble would- it was fervently hoped- act in a similar way to cavitation in water, a concept used by Equestrian submarines, whose torpedoes were designed to produce such bubbles by directing the flow of water around them in a certain way so as to change its pressure and cause bubbles to form, which in turn hugely reduced the friction and drag of water on the torpedo, allowing it to achieve speeds several times faster than any other form of underwater weapon. The idea was that the magic, surrounding the ship, might conceivably allow it to travel much faster than would be possible with ion drives, rockets or any other known form of technological propulsion. It was even theorised that it might be able to use magic as a kind of wormhole, and simply tunnel through space.

The test flight proved the theory beyond any doubt.

Starting from orbital velocity, the crew of the shuttle used their magic to power away from the planet, not stopping once they reached a certain speed, as the first magic-powered tests had done. They kept going, and going, and going, tracked all the way by the ground stations and mission command, out beyond the moon's orbit in a matter of hours instead of days. In doing so they became the most distant ponies from Equis, the greatest travellers in all of history- though the distance they had covered was a minuscule pinprick compared to how far Friendship One would be required to go.

Once they were clear of the moon, they accelerated again, and the next portion of the mission was to test the shielding theory. All on board were fully prepared to die in pursuit of the goal, making sure Friendship One could achieve its great and noble aim, but death did not find the Equinauts on their flight. They passed through the asteroid belt- not the densely clustered labyrinth of popular myth as depicted in sci-fi movies, but still dangerous enough- and accelerated again, constant streams of magic, never ceasing, pushing them forward faster and faster until the orbital telescopes viewing them noticed the craft appearing to slowly turn red, a product of the rapidity at which it was now pulling away from them, red-shifting the light it reflected toward earth in much the same way as distant, receding galaxies did.

Not only the visible light was stretched in such a fashion; so were the radio waves from the shuttle's communications system. This was an issue that had been considered, but sidelined because the ship would have to be travelling far faster than was imagined possible for it to be a serious problem. As it was, they began to rapidly lose contact with the shuttle. Communications were already impeded by the fact that there was a delay, due to the distance between Equis and the shuttle, meaning a message sent would not be received for almost ten minutes, but now the frequency of the transmissions sent from the shuttle was changing too, thanks to its speed, meaning they were not being picked up by radios on the ground which were tuned to the frequency that had been in use since the start of the flight. Some frantic scrambling followed as mission control tried to adjust to a broader-band transmission to re-establish contact.

Deep-space radar lost track of the shuttle entirely at one point, and the fears of mission control began to grow. Another failure. It didn't work, couldn't work. Foolish, a waste of brave lives.

Then, a radio transmission, delayed, according to the timestamp given, by at least four hours.

"Hoofston, this is the Valiant. Canterlot time 12:34 and eighteen seconds. We are commencing deceleration procedures. Current distance from Equis...twenty-nine point six-five-one Celestial Units. Speed unknown, we've maxed out our recorders. Damn things are just spinning around like they're altimeters and we're in a nosedive. I hope you've been keeping a good record."

There would have been great cheers at the arrival of this signal, had the Valiant not already arrived back at Equis, outpacing its own message and, in doing so, smashing the science of physics into a thousand pieces, for the Valiant had been outrunning light itself.

In a little over two hours, the shuttle had travelled almost thirty Celestial Units into the void, and then back home again. One Celestial Unit was the distance between Equis and Celestia's sun, so this put the craft far out in the edges of the solar system, in the vast darkness where comets like to lurk. This kind of speed was astronomically higher than anything ever achieved by any other Equestrian ship or deep-space probe. It had been considered an impossibility; the speed of light in a vacuum was the ultimate, the one barrier that could never be broken by science.

That was why it had taken magic to break it, a force that still, even to modern scientists, was baffling and all but incomprehensible. After all, the sun weighed trillions of tons, yet Celestia could control it and move it, a physical impossibility according to physics. Magic, it seemed, could bypass reality in many ways, an ability not just limited to Alicorns. The Unicorn crew of the Valiant had been able to drive the shuttle an almost infinite distance beyond its design parameters, out into deep space where it was never meant to go, at speeds considered impossible, fanciful, the preserve of science-fiction stories with imaginary propulsion systems like wormhole drives and hyperspace generators.

This success led to some commentators questioning why Equestria was only building one colony ship, and not dozens, to transport the entire population, or at least a much larger chunk of it, to their new and distant home. The answer was simple- they did not have the resources to build more than one. The number of rocket launches required to transport things to orbit was already stretching the system to capacity, with far more launches per month than had ever been attempted before. Industry, now fully under government control, was at the limits of production capacity trying to churn out more boosters and shuttles to get the constituent parts of Friendship One into orbit. What little spare capacity existed was being funnelled into the construction of underground bunkers which comprised the second part of the hopeful rescue plan for ponykind. Nor were there enough trained Equinauts to build a second ship, let alone an entire fleet of them., even with the rapid step-up in training and the invitations sent through the lottery scheme.

No time, no resources, no crew for anything more than a single ship. Everything would ride upon her, for they would only get one shot at success. But with the Valiant's success, for the first time since Celestia's fateful speech, the world could allow itself to feel a little sliver of something they had almost forgotten ever existed.

Hope.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Almagiibuierre Drive is following the scifi abilities, but using a spot of physics more MOND than plain Einsteinieen.

The same magical effect might be useable for bunker shielding, if teh velocity change can be seperated?

[Cross Lament]

Well, now you've got a time machine, you've got all the time in the universe to save everyone.

[Nova_Wings]

We're almost there, I'm guessing the next chapter will be G-day and the launch, I'm wondering how friendship one will know if anyone survives the burst, or if the plan is to just leave, never look back and just hope there were survivors

[Blaze rod]

The bunkers should work, especially if constructed on the moon. With the entire mass of the planet in front of the gamma ray burst, there shouldn't be anything leaking through.

[Alondro]

Hey, Discord? Yo! God-level chaos dude?

There's some high-energy photons coming here that are going to hurt Fluttershy. Turn them to fish or something.

PROBLEM SOLVED!

[Alondro]

11099725 Gamma rays are nothing but photons of a teensy wavelength. If Discord can do something as simple and warp light, then they're NOTHING to his power.

Hell, he just has to bend space around the planet, and the wavelengths will simply obey physics and follow the curve.

When you know the formula of Creation, even a supermassive black hole isn't much of an issue.

Gods play marbles with galaxies, you know.

[BRBrony9]

11105755
But then there wouldn't be a story, so...

You pays your money, you takes your choice!

Besides, I'm not sure Discord is ever shown dealing with planetary-scale magic of any sort, but mostly localised changes to spacetime and whatever other weirdness he unleashes. He doesn't control the sun or hurl asteroids at the planet or anything like that. Likewise Celestia and Luna move the Sun and Moon but show no indication in the show of being able to influence any other astronomical events or bodies.

[Alondro]

11106505 He was popping the Sun and Moon up and down at random when he took over. It literally took him no effort at all to do so.

We never see anything off-world in the show, but we can kinda extrapolate that Discord's powers are immense. As I said, gamma rays are nothing but very energetic light. It must follow the laws of physics. Discord BREAKS the laws of physics for fun and games. He just needs to do a comic thing such as posting a huge "NO GAMMA RAYS ALLOWED!!" sign in front of the planet and the rays would be halted, because chaos power!

You must understand cartoon powers to understand THERE ARE NO LIMITS. We who worship the ways of Yakko Wakko and Dot know these things, as taught by their high priest Freakazoid!

[BRBrony9]

11106579
But Animaniacs and Freakazoid are kind of deliberate exaggerations for the sake of their story and their style. This story isn't (because if it was, there would be no story at all). Plus, as much as I enjoy all-powerful Celestia and as entertaining as Discord can be, I like the idea of something being beyond even their power to stop. It drives home the vastness and power of space.

Plus as the scientists mentioned earlier, if they started randomly moving the sun and moon around to try and block the incoming rays, it would destroy the planet or render it uninhabitable anyway, thus achieving the same end result as the gamma ray burst! The thing about Discord is that he's too 'easy.' He can be handwaved as a solution to any problem, and that makes it hard to write any sci fi/disaster/first contact/apocalyptic stories based on MLP. It's almost expected for him to be able to always save the day and I personally try to write him out of stories for that reason- because it makes it impossible to actually write a story if he's on hand at a second's notice to fix everything!