Chapter 27: The Core
For most of her life, Moondancer had worked alone. To the point that the majority of Equestrian faster-than-light space travel, save for the internal structure of its FTL core, had been built exclusively by her. The project had of course been funded by literal buckets of lunar silver, but there had never been staff who actually worked on the engineering or implementation of her vision. Moondancer had never trusted them to be adequate. She had never trusted anypony, save for one, and that had ended poorly. So her work took precedence. It was all she had.
That sentiment, though, was starting to change, due entirely to the efforts of the engineering staff of the Enterprise. In her haste, Moondancer had been forced to allow them to assist her. She had expected them to fail miserably, but as it turned out, humans were not as moronic as their gangly bodies and stupidly flat faces would suggest. They were mildly useful, even—although she never would have admitted it if asked—somewhat adequate.
They took their tasks, following her lead and instructions, slowly dissecting the central core of her ship with expert precision and care, taking readings and carefully documenting every piece. In fact, they had to. Mr. Scott had made it mandatory. Inadequate engineering had been strictly forbidden, with jury-rigging only allowed on a case-by-case basis. He was as interested in the contents of the core as well, perhaps even as much as Moondancer.
She walked through their throngs, the humans buzzing around her and being useful. One stopped beside her, running through a datapad.
“Command-Wizard, we’ve finished separating the aft regulation system. Our reports indicate that it is most likely a manifold-type energy regulator to stabilize internal sheer force. We substituted it with a power supply linked directly to the Enterprise, and it’s holding.”
He passed her the pad, and she scanned through it in a matter of seconds. Admittedly, the absurdity of their technology made little sense to her, but she at least understood the basic physics it was meant to convey. Although Equestria had yet to develop the transistor, the theory of semiconducting materials and photonic convergence were elementary and inerrant to the universe overall. The math, at least, she understood.
“If it’s a stabilizer, it has to be linked to the primary output. Or an auxiliary dump. We need to go deeper, find out where that energy is supposed to be coming from.”
“We’re already performing the diagnostic tracing and reverse-engineering the functional duotronic memory array. ETA forty minutes.”
Another human, this one female and in a ridiculously short skirt, approached from the other side.
“Command-Wizard, we’ve completed the analysis of the coolant system.”
“And the other fluid handling systems?”
She flipped through her pad and gave it to Moondancer. “A significant amount of the fluid-handling concerns life support. Oxygen recycling, replicator arrays, filters, sensors for organic molecules. Most of them were damaged severely in the blast and are largely nonfunctional.”
“Are they intrinsic to the design?”
The human paused. “Excuse me?”
“What purpose do they serve?”
“We are not sure, miss. They may be remnants from a converted system, although they seem to have been put there on purpose.”
“Ignore them. I’m not concerned with them right now. Focus on the cooling system. I don’t know what kind of reactor is in there, I need eyes on the temperature if it starts to go critical when we crack it open.”
A third human approached, giving Moondancer the pad with the diagnostics for the overall outputs. Moondancer scanned through it as all three humans left, and she stopped, frowning. It appeared that, so far, there was no apparent source of radiation.
She looked up. She had stopped at the very center of their work, where the central core of her ship was being completely dissected. The main hull of it had been carefully separated and removed, cutting away where they had to and fortunately finding a system of bolts beneath. It had then been carefully stripped, which had resulted in wires and conduits extending outward across the floor in clearly demarcated patterns to stations where humans worked on analyzing each section. Moondancer was surrounded by alien technology; both from the crew and their work, and from the inside of her own ship.
What stood before her now was a central cylinder, part of a more advanced array that she only vaguely understood. The absolute central tube was made of a dull, greenish metal, marked with the same symbol as the outer surface. The symbol of its creator. This center was surrounded by an array of filed, pointed crystals linked in chains and patterns to now-exposed alien systems that circled that central reactor vessel. Tubes, some of them severed, fed into it from the top and bottom, although their purpose remained obscure. Most of the control systems had been fully disassembled; as it turned out, her carefully-crafted cables and solenoids had linked back to switches, sensors, and electronics of profound complexity that made them essentially pointless.
Mr. Scott was standing at the precipice of the machine, angrily shoving a datapad into the chest of one of his crewmembers.
“No, no, you bloody fool! It’s pure dilithium, we can’t remove it, even if we don’t know why it’s there! For all we know it’s holding the whole damn thing in one piece!”
“But sir, the resonance readings--”
Scottie sighed. “I know. It’s certainly dilithium, but I’ve never seen dilithium like this, and that’s saying something.” He paused. “Get those readings to Mr. Chekov. Let’s give the boy a chance to have a crack at it, see what he thinks.”
“Yes, sir.”
The human sped off to do human things, leaving Scottie standing next to Moondancer. They were the two closest to the machine, staring up at it. It was only slightly taller than Scottie, but significantly larger than Moondancer.
“Any idea what it is?”
“The crystal array is meant to attenuate and direct the magic field,” said Moondancer. “To stabilize it and probably to direct it, based on how it was linked to my connection systems. Assuming I’m understanding your computer summaries correctly.”
“It wouldn’t be a stretch, but to be honest, lass, I haven’t the foggiest what computer system this actually is. I’ve never seen one like it.”
“Is it really that advanced?”
Scottie seemed offended. “Advanced? Ne, lass, it’s not advanced, in terms of power the Enterprise’s computers are far more powerful on a bad day than it is at its best. It’s simply alien. Almost everything here is, which makes this terribly dangerous.”
“And exciting.”
Scottie smiled. “Aye, lassie.”
Moondancer likewise smiled, even if it was only slight. She had not been so excited in a long time. Not since she had built the ship, in its earliest design stages. Flying it was dull and technical, but this was a mystery that needed to be solved. The only think keeping her from pure joy was the more sinister undertones arising from a source she had yet to understand. A nagging sensation that something was not quite right.
Scottie pointed at the green cylinder in the center. “We can’t manage to scan through whatever that is made of. In fact our senors can’t even pick up what it’s made of.”
“It’s called dimeritium. It’s an extremely rare element on our planet. It negates magic. Or what you would call warp-fields, or energy. The only output it makes is fed through the control crystals.”
“Any thoughts as to what’s on the other side?”
“The reactor.”
“Well, yes. I think we both already knew that.”
“That’s all we can know. And it’s a problem.”
“Aye. A system that blocks radiation that well? It could be in critical failure at this very minute, only to blow us like a firecracker the moment we crack it open.”
“I doubt it.”
“Why?”
“Because I know my ship. Something’s...” She paused. “I don’t know. Something’s not right, but I also...I somehow just know. I can still feel it.”
“Intuition, I see. Something that comes in handy about as often as it gets good men killed.”
“I know. And yet I’m still looking forward to it. I wonder if that’s wrong.”
“It’s curiosity, lass. And I have a terrible case of it too.” His expression darkened. “But...I have concerns.”
“About exploding?”
“Not until you mentioned it, no. But...something else.”
“What?”
“It’s hard to describe.” He frowned. “Hard to put into words but...I suppose you could call it intuition.”
Moondancer looked up at him. “I trust yours almost as much as I trust mine at this point. What is it?”
“The machines. That we’ve taken apart. The bits and bobs we’ve seen. We don’t know what half of them are really meant to do, but I’ve gone through the math and I’ve checked your calculations. I suppose I can surmise the general function of some of them.”
“And?”
“And they work. But not well.”
“What do you mean ‘not well’?”
Scottie paused, thinking. Considering a way to describe what he knew so well in his mind. “It’s like...it’s as if a man were tasked with building a right and proper steam engine, and he had the drawings but none of the parts. And he cobbled together what he could from scrap and had the town blacksmith halfway-build some of the parts, but none of them really fit the way they’re supposed to. None of them really work properly. The firetubes are to the side, the smokestack in the cabin, and the brakes don’t go anywhere except to somewhere in the coal pile. ”
“I don’t like analogies.” She paused. “But...I think I understand.”
“It’s like they knew what they were trying to do, what function they needed to make it do...but they didn’t have the machines to what your math says it needed to do. So they did their best with what they had.”
“So they made it poorly.” Moondancer paused again. “Or someone was using technology she wasn’t familiar with.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” mused Scottie. “It’s more like...whatever schematic they used was much, much more advanced than anything we can do with today’s technology.”
“But it still works.”
“Aye, lass. And it terrifies me.”
Moondancer felt her coat stand on end, even under her technical armor. “Me too,” she said. “I don’t like this. Curiosity’s one thing, but I’ve had a bad feeling since we got the first piece off. It was bad enough when I thought aliens made it. But now you’re telling me aliens made it badly from something they didn’t understand.”
Scottie was silent, but nodded.
A human—another female in a ridiculous skirt—approached Scottie, giving him a datapad and nodding. Scottie took it and read with characteristic human slowness.
“The least you could do is give them trousers,” muttered Moondancer.
“Aye. I know,” sighed Mr. Scott in reply. “This is an engineering deck, not a discotheque. Some of the most brilliant engineers I’ve know have been women, but it’s just not safe. But it’s out of my hands. Starfleet command insists on it. All women need to wear those skirts.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I think it might be on the instance of the Vulcans. Have you seen their female officers? Patterned spandex.”
Moondancer and Scottie shivered simultaneously. One of them assumed that Vulcans looked very similar to humans. The other had imagined Spock with shorter hair.
“We might have some luck, though.”
“With getting them pants?”
“No. According to this, they crew on the fourth subsystem thinks they’ve found what is probably an emergency release. It has some failsafes similar to a breen core-purge lockout, of all things, but if this is correct then I think we can open it up.”
“Then have them prepare it. We can’t scan through the dimeritium shell. The only way to see what’s inside is to open it.”
“There’s prep work to do. Come on.” He started walking.
“Come on?”
He looked over his shoulder, confused. “Aye, lass. Or do you expect me to do this all on my own?”
“I’m ranked Command-Wizard. Not Captain.”
Scottie chuckled. “Aye, lass. I see what you mean.”
They set to work. Moondancer supposed she could consider him a friend.
The preparations could be at best described as complex. In addition to being complex, they were also highly technical. Both things that Moondancer favored. Most of it involved reinforcing the power connections to the Enterprise to stabilize the support system for the mostly-disassembled core, as well as reinforcing shield arrays to contain and redirect any blast it might produce. There were also additional calibrations, with sensors being configured for every form of dangerous radiation that could exist and, at Moondancer’ s insistence, several that human science had surely confirmed could not.
The human team had performed the rest of the functions, alighting the system meant for opening the central column and ensuring that it’s path was clear. This included making repairs to several of the mechanisms that would activate to pull the various pieces out in the correct order; the replication of these components took the most time, forcing Moondancer to wait nervously until it was time.
And then, it was. She stood before the reactor column behind a portable shield array, Mr. Scott standing beside her. The controls had been wired to his position exclusively.
“Are you ready, lass?” he asked. “Because once we open it, I don’t think there’s much chance of us getting it back together.”
“Its fine. But at this point I’m not sure I even want to.” She nodded. “Do it.”
Scottie nodded, and activated the system.
The purge process was not fast. The controls had been stolen from a distant alien culture but reconfigured into the shape of pony magic to the schematic of some unknown and unseen creator. The first to fire were the actuators that pulled the stabilizer crystals, removing them sequentially from their ports in the reactor’s dimeritium armor.
“Radiation spiking,” said one of the crew on the monitors. “Neutrino flux increasing exponentially, with trace tacyon surge.”
“It’s not lethal,” said Scottie. “So we shan’t stop, shall we?”
The mechanisms drew back the stabilizers, arranging them in an almost beautiful pattern as they moved out of the way. Then the central armored tube twisted, turning in such a way as to reveal a seam that had previously been unobserved in it’s matte surface. It cracked open, paused for a moment as the system shifted to a different actuator, and then with a hiss pulled itself apart, revealing the contents.
Moondancer looked inside. In that moment, her intelligence, something that she had perpetually considered her greatest—and only—asset suddenly betrayed her. There was no moment of pause, no glorious moment of confusion before her life shattered before her. She instantly comprehended what she was seeing, rectifying it to all her mathematical models and fully understanding the consequences and implications of the technology that stood before her. What it meant, and what it would make—and she heard the sound of her own screams. Screams of horror, of disgust, and of shame. Shame that she had not figured it out before. That in her quest for technology, she had been blind to the most obvious solution of the mathematical puzzle. The only solution that could possibly make sense.
She ignited her horn, cutting through the protective shield and causing the small projector to burst, sending Scottie reeling in a plume of sparks. Moondancer neither noticed nor cared. She could not look away. She wanted to, but there was no way she could.
She ran to the shining glass tube, looking up at the contents now on full display. There, suspended in a clear, bubbling liquid, was a unicorn. Or what had once been a unicorn. A purple unicorn. Her spine had been opened and reconfigured with crude surgery, exposing the implants that linked her to the system that she had been meant to power, connecting her to the top of the tube. Her mouth was filled with tubes, and a piece of black metal had been bolted over her eyes. Her body was badly scarred from rough incisions, some still sutured together to where the machines fed life into her suspended body. Her horn, once so perfectly formed, had not been deemed useful for her purpose and had been neatly severed.
“It can’t be—it can’t be you, it can’t be you, Twilight it can’t be you--”
But it was. Her cutie mark, untouched by her surgery, was unchanged. Her purple body was the same that Moondancer remembered. Even her hair--now neatly shorn to make room for the implants embedded in her skull—had the same soft pink streak it always had.
Moondancer dropped to her knees, because she understood—and it had been her. It had been her who had done this. She had not known, of course—but she should have. The whole time. The whole time she had possessed this machine. Every since Twilight had left her. Except she never had. Twilight had been with her the whole time—but Moondancer had been too stupid to have looked, to ignorant and oblivious to have even questioned why her best friend had stopped talking to her. How her best friend had been with her the whole time.
“Twilight! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t know! Please, I—” She stood up. “I’ll save you! Hold on!”
She lit her horn and directed the full force of her magic onto the tube. Whatever it was made of, it did not give—at first. But then it started to fracture, its surface cracking under the massive force. Moondancer winced and tightened her grip, spreading the cracks—only to be stopped as a hand pulled her back.
“Stop! Let me go! I have to save her, she’s my best friend, I did this, It’s my fault, please—PLEASE—”
“We cannna just crack her out of it!” cried Scottie, dragging her back. “We have no idea what those machines are, what they’re doing! For all we know, that’s the only thing keeping her alive!”
“But—but—”
“We can’t go about this willy-nilly!”
“We have to get her out, you human IDIOT!”
Moondancer received a sudden slap.
“Did you just...hit me?”
“Sorry, lass, but you’dve done the same for me! We don’t have time to panic, we have to hurry. You saw the data. The life support system failed days ago.”
“But—but—”
“She’s alive in there. I promise it. But if we don’t do this as a precision operation she won’t be for long!”
Moondancer took a deep breath. She did not need a tricorder to see that Scottie was right. Twilight’s lungs were still inflating, but her breaths were shallow and difficult. She was alive—or at least some semblance of alive—but only for the time being. The majority of her life support had been down for far too long.
“Your doctor. The one who saved me. We need to get him down here. NOW.”
“I’ve already called him. If there’s anyone who can help her, it’s him. But right now I need you to keep a clear head.”
“R...right.” Moondancer took a deep breath and held back the tears. It did her no good if she panicked now. This was just another machine, another project—or that was what she needed to force herself to think. “But I need...your help.”
“And you’ll have it. Whatever it takes. We’re getting her out of that infernal machine. I promise.”
Moondancer nodded. She knew it would be true. But in what state, she was still not sure.
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Houston, we've got a problem, Over!
Whoa.
Half-expected, but still .... whoa.
Called it. Now to find out whether Celestia actually knows or not, and who the twins really work for.
Borg pod?
Dun dun dunnnnn
Poor twiggy
This is a crime against nature, whoever did this needs to have nukes dropped on their heads, from orbit.
Methinks section 51 will NOT be around much longer when Tia finds out.
11137441
I doubt she does. If she does indeed know though then she's doing a very good job of hiding how horrible she's become to consider this an actual option
Also, only somewhat related, but I don't think flimm and flamm might be completely aware that the twilight they talk with is, well, her. Seems like a rogue AI, or someone behind the scenes manipulating this.
I heavily suspected this a while back, but I am still horrified.
Oh dear god this is HORRIBLE....
11137475
A nuke? How primitive! Drop a anti-matter torpedo on them! Complete obliteration! Leave nothing left of them!
The failsafe designed to kill the pilot and jedasin the core failed to deploy which damaged the care and saved moondancer's life. Did twilight have enough control over the systems that she could sacrifice herself to save her friend?
Whoa...
someone's going to have a reason to run far, run long. TWO someones. Question is, where can they go, and will they be in time?
I say no.
I'm imagining something that appears like what could have been...
...if one Karan S'jet had attempted integration years before the technology to do so safely was available. A rushed, frenzied attempt to make anything work as quickly as possible, as if she knew exactly what was to come, and felt there was no time to waste developing safety measures...
...but the mention of technology more advanced than that of the creators' understanding leads me to thoughts of Borg. Considering the state that Twilight is in, it is possible that Borg are involved, at least somewhat in influence, though probably less advanced than the most common interpretation of Borg, or this nightmarish sight is an "inspiration" derived of Borg influence, merging flesh to metal, synapses to processors.
Whatever the case, whoever has done this (on the whole we suspect we know, but individually we do not) will face the wrath of one Moondancer...
If Twilight survives this, I'm going to call her a S'jet for all she's done.
11137755
The Borg are still in the Delta quadrant at this time.
Yeah... myself and many others here wish our premonition was wrong.
Oh man.
Worst of all, we’re talking permanent injuries. Severed horn? Crude surgery? Poor thing.
Well...I...am horrified.
Brilliantly written.
11137819
Even if the Doctors can repair the damage in full she will never be the same mentally
It was, if you’ll pardon the phrase, the only logical conclusion. The reclusiveness, the hologram, the pony method of maintaining a warp field, the life support tied to a warp drive… What other explanation could there have been?
Now to see the fallout. And boy, won’t there be a lot of it?
The Flim Flam brothers will wish that Tartarus was their punishment but it's probably going to be much worse.
Unfortunatly, Anne McCaffreys Brainships stories didnt make it through this realities wars.
Also. That containment vessel, to protect the literal intellectual property within, ensures that the insides is a perfect total sensory deprivation tank?
At least if it turns out that its a particular race that set this event up, they wont have to worry about retribution from Celestia, unless its their entire race or a well known singular centralised collaborate?
Then, depends if Celestia can pop up an X class Flaser, or if she will just throw a rock at them.
Quick note. It might take a sizable percentage of traveling at the speed of light to give a rock the kinetic energy to make it appear as if its made totally of a pure matter/antimatter mix, but dont forgeet, the rock can be pushed a LOT harder. The only limit is when the mass increase divided by the length decrease, exceeds the Schwarzchild radius.
11137573
But you want to keep the crystals.
11137573
Oh no you aren’t going far enough. No the monster(s) that did this don’t deserve instant death. The monster(s) need a slow and and painful demise. Then drop the anti-matter torpedo to erase their taint from this world.
Yep. Time for a quick evacuation of whatever ponies still have functioning brains followed by full Exterminatus.
My bet is that Sunbutt was very much a part of this. The problem with a tyrant personally teaching the best and brightest is that eventually the pupil figures out their teachers plans. In this case when Twilight got too close to the truth she was sent to work on this "big project". While Celestia's pet aliens where told to dispose of her.
11138008
Indeed.
McCoy mentioned that cybernetics was a dead science as regrowing body parts was preferred.
What a horrifying scene. I really wish that next chapter was here to read. Her horn! That’s like amputation of all limbs because they are not needed in there.
11138799
I'm tired of the evil Celestia cliche. While it's implied she has been in contact with some alien faction (Ferengi?) for some time, I don't believe they told her about the fine print of the arrangement.
It would make more sense if Flim and Flam tricked Twilight into participating in a new exciting "experiment" when it was clear the purple unicorn was starting to puzzle things out.
11137601
Something tells me that the Twins would not let her have that much control. That said, this was Twilight protecting a friend. Nothing short of complete and total timeline collapse was going to stop her.
11138847
I read an X-Com crossover here that did exactly that to Cadence. The baddies lopped off her wings and legs, and shoved her horn-first into a device that broadcast her screams of agony into the minds of every Human, Pony, and Gryphon in range. Thankfully, that Earth DID have cybernetics, so she's back on all fours, at least. Too bad Mente Materia hasn't updated since mid 2019. The author logged in recently though, so there is still some hope...
Now that is some dramatic, dark science fiction. That's definitely a worse state that she's in than most of us expected. Personally, I was hoping she was at least conscious and aware of things around and outside the core, hooked into something drawing from her horn which she went along with ipso facto to help get Equestria onto the galactic stage as an independent actor.
What this really reminds me of is Quake 4. Not the Borg; they're much more efficient at blending synthetics and organics, and they'd have loaded the core with nanoprobes to swarm out and begin assimilating sentients as soon as the jig was up. No, it's the Strogg who come to mind, especially with how they 'converted' captured enemies into stationary batteries without leg or arm privileges. Brutal, uncaring, but unarguably effective, though this was not quite at the level of full Stroggification.
This is also a fair bit out of bounds for what the Ferengi consider ethical and acceptable to do themselves. For all that Flim and Flam are showing obvious influence from those large-lobed fellows, signs still point to another actor involved with the warp core business. It may well be TwAI.light (I don't think I've seen this specific naming used before) who sees no qualms with experimenting on her "own" body, but the Klingons are still in the game as well.
This is great! And you doubted people would want to read this, you underestimated yourself. I'm quite looking forward to the next chapters!
11138344
No Ship Who Sang or City Who Fought here, unfortunately. Although their power sources were a good century or two behind TOS, their bionic integrations tech was a good century or two ahead of TNG. Twilight's probably too old for the encapsulation process anyway, assuming ponies even have myelin sheathes.
Remember how they put on a play of Hamlet and got fusion engine technology from that one aquatic species that valued emotional response as currency? Actually, most good sci-fi I can think of has included Shakespeare's works in some form or other.
11138905
11092152
Couldn't pass it up.
........
Okay, so flip a coin and make on of the brothers call it, whoever loses, they get given over to the four rulers first, they get to each grab a leg and play a game of four way wishbone, whoever gets the larger piece gets to then have fun with the remaining brother... so long as they leave him alive and conscious enough to understand how fucked he is. Then, what's left gets transported up to the Enterprise and Moondancer gets to feed it, very slowly, into a matter reclamater.
The AI is already beyond fucked, it's up against James T. Motherfucking Kirk... and while all the main captains can be debated to be the best in certain scenarios... there is no captain in all of Starfleet that has ever been better at making a rogue AI fry itself.
Now the real question...an possible real dark, oh fuck, is just where did Flim and Flam get the designs for this? This is unlike any tech in Trek, about the only one that even seems close is the Borg, and if they were involved, Equestria would already be assimilated. As much as the two act like Ferenghi, this is beyond their tech and really..makes no sense for them to do, where is the profit in this if it requires such a rare resource?
But everyone I see in comments debating and guessing is forgetting something...... we've already seen freakin Geth platforms, we have Eezo..... this sort of grafting of flesh and machine and using tech beyond anything Scotty knows of, that is clearly that advanced even after being dumbed down to what Equestria could produce..... are those two fucking morons messing around with god damn Reaper tech!?