Moondancer was led through the ship by a pair of human guards dressed in red uniforms. They carried weapons, but Moondancer’s own analysis of the devices indicated that the magic they contained was exceedingly primitive by Equestrian standards. Regardless, she did not want to be phased, and as such had covertly disconnected the power supplies from the internal components using her own magic. The humans, being beings with tiny and probably color-blind eyes, had not noticed.
She had re-clothed herself. While it was not uncommon for ponies to go about their daily activities in the nude, Moondancer had never been a great fan of wandering around naked. Even during her university days, she had worn a sweatshirt constantly. The same sweatshirt, without having washed it. When she emigrated to the Lunar colonies, it was replaced with something heavier to deal with the perpetual chill. The moon was an inhospitable place; a harsh mistress, one might say.
Her flight suit had been badly damaged during her prototype’s failure, and any amounts of it that had not been burned or torn had been cut away from her as she was stripped for surgery and possible probing. The replacement was dark armor, with leathery plates held together with more flexible components. It was a legitimate uniform, but one uncommon for the standard Lunar Guard. Which made sense, considering her position. She was not one of them. She existed outside formal rank, in a category with only one member. In any event, Moondancer was not about to walk around in an alien spacecraft without some form of protection in case everything went south. It did not seem to be a pleasant or inviting place.
What surprised her most, though, was the sheer scale of the ship surrounding her. A ship capable of traveling at the same speed as hers, but hundreds of thousands of times the mass, complete with doors and hallways tall enough for the gangly bipeds that inhabited it. It seemed to go on forever as she was lead through it.
When the last door on her path opened, she did her best not to become spooked. That was another part that intrigued her, but that she very much hated. The hissing doors were surprising and unnecessary.
Through that door, numerous of the bipeds were at work. One was passing quickly, reading aloud from a datapad to one of his assistants. When he saw a small pony stepping through his door, he pushed the pad to the assistant and waved him onto whatever task it was the engineering staff tended to do aboard a starship.
The human quickly approached Moondancer, extending his hand.
“Been taking your time, have you? Montgomerry Scott, chief engineer aboard this fine vessel.”
Moondancer stared at his outstretched hand, then looked up at him. “Are you trying to grab my horn? If you do, I’ll liberate your skeleton from your meats.”
The human frowned, but then laughed. “Why, if you haven’t had your skeleton pulled out at least twice you don’t even deserve to be promoted to transporter chief, let alone allowed to open the repair panels on it.”
Moondancer frowned. “That accent...are you Dundaxian?”
Mr. Scott looked even more confused. “No, lass, I’m from Scotland. And, to be honest, I’ve never understood why more aliens don’t have Scottish accents. You sound like you’re from midwestern America, like the rest of the aliens do.”
“Because I assimilated your language from your doctor. I grew up in Canterlot, in my own language I have a Canterlot accent.”
“Canterlot...” Mr. Scott tilted his head. “Lass, is that meant to be a horse pun?”
“It is not a pun in the correct language, just in yours.” Moondancer gestured to the guards. “Do these need to be here?”
“Yes,” said one of the nameless guards, firmly.
“Aye, sure, with your damn resonance crystals unplugged, a great lot of good you’ll both do!”
The guards looked down, inspecting their firearms, and their eyes widened.
“But how--”
“Because the focusing coils make a high-pitched whine when they’re connected, you bleeding dullards, and if you aren’t even listening for it you shouldn’t even have gotten permission to have those things, let alone in engineering where we have the flammables.” He waved them off. “Go on! Can’t a man have a conversation with a tiny horse in private?”
They looked at each other, but stepped back, fumbling to reconnect the components of their phasers.
Mr. Scott sighed. “Stunning example of human intelligence for your first day here. My apologies, lass. Also for the handshake. You seem to have a lack of the proper appendages.”
“I don’t lack anything. I just can’t wrap tiny sausages around objects.”
Mr. Scott nodded knowingly. “Do ye have a name, little pony?”
“Moondancer.”
Mr. Scott stifled a laugh, but not well. This did not go unnoticed, although it did go unappreciated.
“Is something about my name funny to you?”
“No, no, not at all, lass, it’s a fine name--”
“Considering that you are a Scotsman named ‘Scott’. With a first name of Montgomery.”
Scotty’s expression fell. He had apparently never realized this. “Aye...that...that be true, lass...”
“And you reek of maple-smoked ham.”
Scotty frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I don't really care what it means. I’m here to help oversee the joint salvage operation of my ship.”
Mr. Scott’s expression lit up. “Aye, lass. I’ve already dispatched the tows. We can go directly to the shuttle bay as soon as you’re ready.”
“It’s my ship, and it’s in pieces. When would I not be ready? I’m not even going to be able to sleep until I at least know what I’m going to need to do to fix it.”
Mr. Scott smiled. “Well then what are waiting for, lass? It’s not about to salvage itself!”
The shuttle bay was vast, far larger than any room Moondancer would ever even have considered for use in a spacecraft. From her understanding, the Enterprise was a bizarrely shaped and spindly craft where most of the engineering aspects were kept in the lower part, away from the crew housing in the saucer. She had yet to comprehend what the nacelles were for, because she had no idea how this ship’s engine worked exactly—and as interesting an academic exercise learning about that might prove, her first priority was recovering her ship.
The rear of the bay had been opened, producing a vast doorway to space itself. The atmosphere was apparently kept within the ship through the use of a spell of unknown nature, producing a magic membrane that allowed solid objects but not gas to pass through.
As she watched, a pair of boxy, ugly human ships were in the process of pulling the forward spike of her own craft through the gateway. As soon as they maneuvered it into position, beams projected from a machine overhead took control, manipulating it into position with the other parts. They had already been pulled in and assembled on special jigs to keep them standing.
“Darn it,” swore Moondancer. “Look how many pieces it’s in.”
“Lass, you dropped out of warp with a failed forward deflector sheild. It’s a damn miracle you’re still in one piece and the ship isn’t space particulates.” He checked a datapad. “It’s an even greater miracle your warp core didn’t rupture. I’ve taken a look over Mr. Chekov’s calculations, and the boy’s admittedly a genius, but not a practical mind to him in the slightest. If his readings were right, your ship shouldn’t even fly.”
“It did,” snapped Moondancer, descending the stairs to where the forward command section of her ship had just been placed on its jig. “And it was almost faster than yours.”
Mr. Scott nearly dropped his datapad. “I was ordered to be civil, but don’t start a fight you can’t win, lassie.”
“I have enough telekinetic power to bend you without even trying. What do you have?”
“I’m a Scotsman.”
“Irrelevant.”
"Aye, you'd think, wouldn't you?"
Moondancer ignored him and passed the edge of her ship, inspecting the damage. The material did not exactly have a single color, but generally rendered as a sort of dark indigo to violet in the shuttle bay’s light, sometimes changing to a near-blue depending on the angle and a gray at others. The edges of it were badly carbonized where it had been torn apart. She could see the inside of the cockpit, and the marks on her chair of where her magic had torn apart the cloth.
Mr. Scott followed, putting his hand on the ship as he passed. He pulled it back, a confused look on his face.
“Is this...wood?”
“Of course it’s wood. It’s the only thing sturdy enough to make the carapace.”
“But...wood.” Scotty stepped back, admiring the long point of the ship and the way it gently curved in a distinctly organic shape. “You made a starship out of...wood?”
“It is a type of tree that grows on the moon’s surface. The hull was grown in a single piece around a mithril skeleton using extensive biomancy. Which took two years of continuous effort and over ninety percent our planet’s supply of mithril for a ten kilogram skeleton.” She winced, putting her hoof to her head, which was suddenly throbbing. “The pieces can’t be reattached. I’m going to have to grow another one.”
“The hull of the Enterprise is made of duranium plates.”
“Metal would interfere with field concordance. How the heck am I supposed to interact with the mass-shift field if I can’t feel it?”
“Feel it...” Mr. Scott’s eyes widened. “Lass, you’re saying you can interface with the warp field directly, that would be absolute madness--”
An alarm sounded, and Scotty grasped Moondancer by the tail, pulling her out of the way of the next fragment of her ship. Moondancer was about to complain about this harsh treatment until she looked up and saw what was being brought in.
It was the rear portion of the ship, still partially attached to the machine held within. The connections for the cables and wires had been severed, and the relay banks were exposed and badly melted, but the core had remained intact. A vast cylinder of stabilized metal, surrounded by control apertures forged from single crystals that acted as primary field lines into the central assembly.
The center of the drive core was marked with the insignia of its creator: a six-pointed violet star, surrounded by five small white ones. Moondancer felt herself grimacing when she saw it. She hated that symbol, and had done her best not to look at it when she had been assembling the craft.
The core was set down carefully, wobbling slightly on its jig. Moondancer cast her own magic, stabilizing it.
“You could at least try to be careful with it. I can build another ship. I can’t build another one of these.”
Mr. Scott, intrigued, approached. The device was about double his height, but substantially wider.
“This is your warp core, then?”
“If that is what you want to call it, sure. It’s the part that generates the spatial distortion field and reduces the effective mass of the ship to near-zero, so yes. Why not.” Moondancer approached it, and to her horror found that the internal unit was slightly charred. Some pieces of the central metal had burned and melted, and some of the critical sealed internal fragments had blown apart from a system overload.
“It’s damaged. That’s impossible.”
“Lass, as I said, it’s a miracle it even stayed intact at all--”
“You don’t understand.” Moondancer trotted back to the front part of her ship, the piloting area. “This is wrong. This is all wrong.” She jumped up through the open hole in the back of the ship, barely avoiding the shards of mithril and carbonized wood, and sat down in the seat. She lit her horn and energized part of the internal systems, the indicator lights flashing on.
“You’ll have to forgive me if I’m somewhat lost, lass. I’m still stuck on the fact you made it out of wood.”
“I built a failsafe into the core support feed. Because I thought something like this might happen. If the core is in danger, it’s designed to cast a shield spell around itself. A pure spatial distortion. It functionally ejects itself from this universe for eight elevenths of a second—it could survive a direct impact from a suprenova.”
Mr. Scott looked at the wreckage. “Well, the rest of the ship certainly suffered.”
“It was never designed to preserve the rest of the ship. The field loses strength to the fifth power dependent on circumference, it would be ineffective any farther than its own surface. And just doing that puts the power crystals into in inversion state. They’re mounted directly below the piloting area. They’re meant to explode to provide the power. This piece? It should have been vaporized.”
Scotty stared at it, a grim expression crossing his face. “And you with it. Why would you design it to do such a thing?”
“I can be replaced. The survival of the prototype is more important.”
“That’s a right terrible way to think about it.”
Moondancer glared at him. “I don’t bother to maintain the illusion that I’m not expendable, Mr. Scott. Nobody is waiting for me. Not on the Moon, not in Equestria.”
“That’s not what your last transmission seems to have indicated.”
Moondancer’s icy gaze did not change in the slightest. “Because if my prototype failed, I needed to have memorable last words that were culturally appropriate. So they won’t be afraid to build another. Besides. At the distance I transmitted? It would be decades before they even heard it. No one I ever knew would still be alive.” She turned back to the controls. “And that isn’t really my concern right now. Or ever. My job is to built this ship, and fly it. And now I need to find out why the core didn’t draw power like it should, and why the field was too large. Why I survived and the core got damaged.”
“Well, did you design it to record that on the ship’s computer?”
Moondancer laughed. “Computer? Maybe on this gigantic beast, but there’s no way I could ever have the space or power supply necessary to power the vacuum tubes. Just fitting the tubes for the radio in took me six months of design work, there’s no way I could ever fit a computer on a starship.”
This seemed to both perturb and intrigue Mr. Scott. “Lass, do you mean to tell me your ship has no computer? None at all?”
“Of course not.” She cycled part of the system, revealing the mechanical controls visible through the holes in the hull. “The control scheme is mechanical and electromechanical. All controlled telekinetically.”
“But you can’t fly a warp ship without a computer! The field calculations alone, let alone the thrust vectors, the power maintenance to the inertial dampeners--!”
It was Moodancer’s turn to look surprised. “You mean you...don’t?”
“Don’t what?”
“Do those yourself.”
“Lass, that’s absolute madness, no human being could possibly--”
“I am not a human. I am a pony. Specifically, a unicorn. I do all those calculations myself. In real-time. While operating the controls and using my own field to direct the primary drive force. This isn’t a space-plane or a moon rocket. Contrary to what Rainbow Dash will tell you, only a level seven-unicorn or greater can even begin to operate an FTL ship.”
“Well when you have to be a damn mentat just to turn it on, of course you do!”
“Well then how do you do it?”
“With computers!”
“I told you, computers are a system of tubes--”
“We haven’t used a vacuum tube in nigh on three hundred years! How do you have warp speed technology but not even semiconductors, let alone a material to make a ship other than wood?!”
Moondancer frowned. “What do you use if you don’t have tubes?”
“Duotronic chipsets.”
“I don’t know what that is. What is the size ratio?”
Mr. Scott chuckled. “Lass, a processor head less than a centimeter long can hold over three hundred thousand Boolean gate equivalents.”
Moondancer’s already large eyes opened to their full widest. “That—if I had that, then I could—if you break down the Boolean into arithmetic, I could—that’s a lot of gates!”
“Aye, lass.”
Moondancer nodded, and then reached back into her ship with her magic and pulled out a single glowing tetrahedral crystal.
“This is the closest I have,” she said. “I can go over this to analyze what I think went wrong, but first, I think we need to call a meeting and have a discussion.”
“Aye, lass. I think this is a rare case where our technologies evolved in completely different directions. A transfer of knowledge would do us good. And more than that, I don’t want my men laying a finger on anything you own without knowing what it does—or doesn’t—have in it.”
“Agreed.” She looked to the core. “This ship is unbelievably precious to me, and to my planet. Your arm-sausages probably have a lot of uses, but I want to be one-hundred percent sure they don’t get stuck in any critical holes.”
Mr. Scott nodded, but Moondaner was already relatively confident in his abilities at lest. She was actually stalling. Until she had time to read the crystal and try to get some idea of what was going on. It made no sense to her, and that made her feel strange. An emotion she did not fully know as fear. When she had been in the burning cockpit, even when she cast the shield spell she knew would surely break, she was not really afraid. Even then, she knew exactly what was happening. That was no longer the case.
Something was not right. And with the humans’ help, Moondancer intended to find exactly what it was.
It seems like Equestrians are culturally taught that magic is superior to everything. The way Moondancer is treating the humans just because they lack magic and have smaller eyes is enough proof of that!
11051573
They are abrasive, overpowered jerks. And it pisses me that none among the crew other than McCoy is willing to call them off.
Yes, the Enterprise crew and Starfleet in general pride themselves for their diplomacy, but there are limits. Limits that ponies don't even consider.
Not so smug now, huh? As impressive as her manual flying skills are, she can't claim superiority when humans have built machines that do the same thing she does except much faster, better and cheaper.
11051573
One, the Equestrians have a basis view as they didn't have a non-magic system to compare it to, now they do ...
Scotty shows one of the better engineering secrets, using all of one's senses to detect problems before they become major ...
Oh, did the unicorns invade in Equestria too?
I really hope Mr Scott means 300 thousand Logic gates per linear cm, which is 90 Billion per thin film square cm, and multiply again for a logic cube, either layers or self assembled linear or fractally folded logic sheet?
Moondancers teleport looks like uses the form a BEC plasma shield around self to become a single quantum particle, then decohere the particle to be in two places at the same time by using a variation of single photon wormhole that exists only for that duration, allow the particle to recohere at the destination, collapse the plasma shield, and walk off? Its an older design but it seems to work.
Will Spikes message breath work off planet, and will Spock be able to use L-Theory to handle the logic of Pinkie?
11047030
psst, just a note, but... You don't have to be in love, be in a relationship, or get married to have children. If things truly are as dire as described I'm sure they have systems in place to allow for mares that want foals to get "donations". In vitro fertilizations using cells that stallions are required to donate when they come of age is totally something that could work to keep a stable population going.
11051590
Too be far, Scotty himself did drink a supposed superior alien under the table with some old Scottish whiskey in the original series.
Yeah, you don't mess with a Scotsman. Even Samurai Jack knows that much.
11051590
I'm not sure that's a "pony" thing so much as it is a "Moondancer" thing.
But hey, be honest: If you were the only being known to exist that could move at relativistic speeds by thinking hard enough, I imagine you'd have a pretty inflated sense of your own worth and importance too.
11051837
Pretty much every single named pony in this story other than Celestia has been rude or outright hostile to the newcomers regardless how composed the later behaved.
And there is not even a barrier language to justify their behaviour.
P.E: Celestia is several orders of magnitude more powerful than Moondancer, yet isn't a b*** about it.
It is interesting that Moondancer has a problem with Twilight but that might just be jealousy. I expect that McCoy will be of great help in figuring out what went wrong. When Twilight learns of those computers she's probably going to start on study binge that lasts too long.
11051847
That's because being polite and affable is the fastest way to gain access to the Captain's Log.
3.bp.blogspot.com/-_tr6Or4b43w/T8coGApA6FI/AAAAAAAALYM/ZJE2tA2yd5c/s1600/If+you+know+what+I+mean+mr+bean+meme.png
Moondancer drank a Scotsman under a table?
What's a Scotsman?
What's a Gorn?
Muffins in the replicator!
11051856
Well likely every unicorn scientist is jealous of Twilight Sparkle she's a freaking genius and powerful, most unicorns can only clam to be one of those and worse Twilight is humble. The type of resentment you feel towards a humble genius is worse than an arrogant one, because you feel guilty about it if they are arrogant you at least feel justify because they are such an ass
Also yes you can't do a MLP Star Trek cross over with it Twilight almost going crazy over then concept of the Library computer.
Aye, that be our Mister Scott. Get involved in anything technical, especially different technical, and there's no stopping him from getting along with his opposite number to figure out the whichness of the why of it all.
Somehow, I can see Scotty and Moondancer in a lounge somewhere, having a few friendly drinks later. Drinks that turn into bottles, then cases, until they both pass out...
so uh author of this story how long before sunbutt asks kirk if he likes mmmmmm bananas?
faust i miss molestia
Humans think so slowly they're barely sentient compared to ponies.
11051965
....and in this story, they'll liable to end up in bed....
And you know the funniest thing about all this seems like it's shaping up to be? If Kirk is the ONLY one in the crew to NOT get some pony! (or at least something appropriately feline-fitting, for M'Ress and any other Caitians onboard)
11051639 Lets not forget if she gets distracted probably even for half a second the whole system will at a minim crash if not self destruct
11052032 We already have air planes they couldn't fly without constant computer assistance. HOW much more constant millisecond to millisecond adjustment or faster do they need for a warp core and matter - antimatter reactions
11051590
Meh.
Moondancer is somewhat more mellow than Bones...
Seriously, though, Moonie is rather rough, and full of herself.
Lyra isn't doing this, though. She's got a whole different set of neuroses...
But I'm not seeing them as overpowered.
They've not actually done ANY of what they have claimed...
11051668
Seriously. An M1 Max in a 2021 MacBook Pro has 57 billion transistors, at 2-8 transistors per Boolean gate. 300k in a centimeter is futuristic...if it's the 1960s.
11051847
I long ago came to the conclusion that this was a poorly tagged crackfic. Don’t try and read much into it; even if you guess right, it’ll change the following chapter. Just expect it to be randomly ooc and filled with enough gratuitous snark to rival a tv sitcom.
11052478
Other than cartoon logic and Looney Toon physics?
11052536
You are probably right.
11052533
Thats like having 2 million Amiga A500s running in parralel, each at between 100 and 1000 stock speed, depending on coding efficincies?
I just get this feeling that modern systems are suffering extreme cases of Cutie Pox.
I blame the universal translator for that.
Hmm. Possible sabotage? But why, is the question…
Also, I do appreciate how the species with very different capabilities developed very different technology. Very nice stuff there.
Looking forward to more. Especially as Moondancer has realized the sausage-tendrilled ape-monsters actually have something going for them.
11051668
And that why they measured their processors in “quads” in later series. The writers knew they couldn’t anticipate Moore’s Law centuries ahead of time.
11053175
I beleive it may be possible for futuristic alien technology to be working at a 6th order scale, in order for it to be alien and futuristic. As in, wouldnt it be intresting if such and such collection of hypothetical techniques could not only work, but work together.
As in, every time you halve the scale, in a given volume, you can get 2^6=64 times the permormance increase? Start with Stonehenge?
11052533 It just makes what Moon Dancer is doing all the harder to believe. I doubt its just a level 7 unicorn to make the ship fly and how many level 7 or higher unicorns are willing to take the risk with the ability to handle the necessary math and concentration. Expendable mare indeed
Technically speaking she is a computer, and she says she is replaceable.
11052533 Well, this is original series Enterprise, which was from the 1960's.
Well, wood in spaceships isn't that crazy... For the outer skin perhaps, but not for some other parts.
build
The reason why unicorns are the single biggest headache of any security type in existence who doesn't have magic of their own.
Moony..... my money is on the Scotsman on this one.
So, I am fine with Moondancer being acerbic like this, especially one that never got the reconciliation with Twilight, and it doesn't stop her from recognizing when something is impressive or admitting the humans might be able to help.
Yeah, her and Scoty are going to get along just fine.
I also like this way of diverging tech and how much this relies on magic and how fast a unicorn can process info for a spell. I doubt Moondancer is doing the full math so much as just... feeling it and knowing how she needs to adjust the field. But still damn impressive.
Now, the mystery starts!