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Starscribe


When everyone and everything seems dark, don't be. My Patrons let me keep writing, at: https://www.patreon.com/RealStarscribe

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For centuries, the galaxy has burned in an eternal war. Wielding their magical might, the Enti sweep across space, slaughtering and enslaving all they encounter. A loose alliance of the remaining intelligence races, without magic of their own, can barely even slow them down.

Scouting on a remote edge of the galactic rim, humanity discovers a trump card: Equus. This planet overflows with magic, and has a culture inherently friendly and receptive to diplomacy. First contact was made, and soon all of Equus took a giant leap into the space age. Despite their incredible magic, Equestria is a minor power, with very little to offer the war. Instead of giving ships, Equus volunteer their diplomatic aptitude. They can't save the galaxy by force of arms, but maybe they can find the free people of the galaxy some powerful new friends.

Princess Twilight nominates six of her most loyal and trustworthy students to perform this incredible task. Armed with powerful artifacts of protection, they set out to meet with the only powerful neutral party in the war, and win them over to the Stellar Compact.

If they fail, all nonmagical life in the galaxy may be doomed to conquest and death. No pressure, Ocellus.


Cover by Zutcha. Edited by Two Bit and Sparktail
Commissioned by Vilken666 on my Patreon

Chapters (18)
Comments ( 175 )

IF Equestria tries to do their "peaceful diplomacy" on the Enti? I will be super pissed and disappointed with them. :facehoof:

Because we can't just ignore or "justified" the many genocides and slavery of many innocent alien worlds/planets by those evil magical alien bastards!

Just hope that neutral alien party isn't any "worse".

I gotta say, I'm already not very good at picturing rooms from written descriptions, and picturing a strange megastructure like Antioch appears to be is doubly hard. Maybe a diagram or two would help.

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There's pretty much no way to proceed with entirely peaceful means with a genocidal empire, but that doesn't mean peaceful relations as a goal are off the table. I'm also really tired of redemption arcs for villains that are entirely gone too far (esp. after Steven Universe), but the Enti are an entire alien species, with only the top brass presumably actually responsible for the actions of the empire as a whole.

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but the Enti are an entire alien species, with only the top brass presumably actually responsible for the actions of the empire as a whole.

Isn't that what the Diamonds from Steven Universe are?

We deathworlders should stick together.

Not sure if that says more about Equestria, Earth, or the rest of the galaxy...

In any case, looking forward to seeing where this one goes. I've seen bits of it in Patreon updates, but I wanted to leave myself mostly unspoiled so I could appreciate it with better commenting capabilities.

“And we’re sure these are the friendly creatures?” Rarity said, from the communications station.

derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/11/29/1033361.png

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It's a Dyson Sphere, or more specifically, a Dyson Swarm/Bubble.

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But the ponies are apparently entering the core of Antioch, which I would imagine is where star would be in a Dyson Sphere?

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Yes, the problem being that they got away scot-free. I have no problem with Gems as a species being redeemed.

Is this a crossover?

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Right, what they call Antioch is the outer, enclosing, layer of the Dyson Sphere--Twilight likens it to flying inside of a planet because that's the closest comparison she knows in her understanding. And since we're seeing it through the eyes of the inexperienced ponies, we're stuck with the same limitations. Unreliable narrator and all that. But I still know a Dyson Sphere when I see one, and it's not like it's unexpected, since Starscribe's used megastructures like a Dyson Sphere in past works before (if I recall, one used a Niven Ring, did it not?)

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No. Totally original.

Time to settle in and see what these ponies are capable of.

The Zecrin won’t help, so until you… no one thought that magical species could even see the rest of us as people.

Wonder if the Zecrin are our neutral alien party. Either way, I'm pretty sure Equestria will have uncomfortable questions about this alliance if the Compact are more interested in their ability to solicit aid from a more powerful magical civilization rather than what they could bring to the table themselves.

“Well we could change our minds,” Pinkie said offhand. “Maybe you’re afraid that we’ll find out too much, and we’ll get cold hooves at the last second. If it feels like joining with you might be picking the wrong side in this war, maybe it’s not the right choice for Equestria.”

Quite a strange thing for Pinkie to say. Though I suppose Garnett's response was simple courtesy in friendship. It need not be said that an Equestrian alliance (or even neutrality) with the Enti is not exactly healthy for the ponies or their biosphere.

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Dyson swarms, or Dyson spheres are nearly incomprehensible to everybody.
If you have 40 minutes to spare this guy is really good at explaining it.
https://youtu.be/HlmKejRSVd8

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Hahah if I could I'd make Issac Arthur mandatory reading.

The translator grinned back. “Good. We deathworlders should stick together.”

Not until now have I ever thought of Equestria as qualifying as a deathworld.
Starscribe, where on the deathworld danger scale would Equestria land on?

If I may, why is she so confused by human clapping? In canon, aside from just stomping their hooves, ponies have sat on their haunches and clapped their forehooves together before. It isn't that different. :rainbowhuh:

That aside, welcome to the Compact, Equestria! :yay:

High likelihood that Zero Point is going to cause major problems later on.

The Compact's first magical member rushed in due to war. No doubt resolving this situation will rush them to being one of the more esteemed races as well.

“I thought humans were newer members,” she muttered, hoping that the size of the crowd would keep their conversation from behind overheard. “Half the creatures in this room look like you.”

Garnett laughed cheerfully. “Save the galaxy and that’ll happen. We’re not the cleverest, our tech isn’t the best, and our art might not be the most interesting. But when there’s terrible evil rampaging across the galaxy, all the science in the world won’t save you if your ships don’t have pilots brave enough to go into battle. Or explorers daring enough to venture out into the unknown, and make friends with aliens no one ever imagined.”

There's something fresh to seeing a story where humans are neither the big shots, the antagonists, the focus, or even the protagonists. They're just another side (albeit a big one) to the story.

“I would hope so,” Pinkie said cheerfully. “We wouldn’t want to make promises with creatures that are going to lie to us. Then maybe we would’ve picked the wrong side.”

Pinkie, the Enti would not save your world fast enough if you decided to join them. Even neutrality would have you living under the Compact's shadow praying that they're still keeping Zero Point from making a move.

“The Stellar Compact has determined to accept Equus and all its member species as associate members. Should it survive probation, it may elect a member to the security council in one year’s time.”

Okay, maybe your translation isn’t as perfect as I thought. Survive probably wasn’t the word you were looking for.

Though I suppose to Pinkie's credit, Equestria probably isn't ready to commit to whatever the Compact expects them to commit to. There's going to be rough edges to this friendship.

Are we signing a treaty, or being judged?

A little of both probably

Oh wow, this is a very fascinating premise! Almost thought this was a prequel to Message in a Bottle at first. I'm not unconvinced it isn't, hehe. This might even be what created Harmony, or what made it necessary in the future.

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I'd pick "rest of the galaxy" myself.

Ah. I see humanity's hat in this setting is "the suicidally brave Sir Lancelot." And in some cases, that ludicrous courage comes in the form of looking at the species about to level the playing field and saying "We don't want any." Let's just hope Zero Point doesn't do anything colossally dumb any time soon. For now, there's a war to fight... though I still have to wonder how the Student Six get saddled with the actual negotiations. The story description makes it clear that Twilight and company are viable options.

... Dang it, Twilight, now is not the time to take a page out of Celestia's playbook and turn the fate of the world into a learning experience.

As far as Twilight had believed, all the hard work would end as soon as they signed the treaty and settled in as proper members of the Stellar Compact.

Oh, you sweet summer child...

Equestria would send ponies to train in the human naval academy, and this race or that would build an embassy on Equus as soon as ponies told them where to put it.

Given who the bulk of this story will ostensibly be focused on, I have to wonder how the rest of Equus's sapient species feel about and will participating in all of this.

Twilight glared across the table at Dali. She smiled as politely as she could, lifting her fork in her magic and taking a slow, deliberate bite of a tiny cake.

:rainbowlaugh: Outstanding. I wish Discord were here. I'm pretty sure he'd make Dali's head explode within five minutes of meeting him.

Ah. And we may have our transition point. This certainly explains why Twilight et al. can't do it themselves; they're busier with other parts of integrating their planet into this alliance. Still, this will be quite the undertaking for the kids. Good luck to them.

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lol I'd personally put it at 11. It shares a lot of characteristics with Earth but is obviously less dangerous.

Can't say allowing Dali near the Equestrians was wise in the slightest. Magic might be a threat to reality but right now the Enti are definitely one.

She could see only Pinkie nearby, sitting at a table with... five guards? They'd settled their gun-belts over their chairs, and there were rows of little glasses in front of them. Pinkie, are you having a drinking contest? Despite her size, the earth pony mare seemed to be winning.

Party pony indeed.

If no new scavenger had evolved to decompose these new corpses, and eventually to eat living plants... my kind would not exist, and the galaxy would already be enslaved.

The biosphere didn't seem too bothered for millions of years.

We imagine it is balanced, yet it is not. A billion billion spells might pass with no impact on this field—yet eventually, one will agitate it just a little too much.

Something like that would've already happened. Living things or their tech don't tend to pull on the strings of reality too much. There's enough phenomena in the Universe far stronger than that and sufficiently powerful ones usually end up as black holes. We're probably stable for the near future.

"Once it begins, vacuum decay will accelerate in all directions at the speed of light, utterly annihilating all matter that it comes in contact with. Your kind, or the Enti, or the Zecrin will initiate the end of all life not just in the galaxy, but in all the gravitationally-bound universe."

As much as the worst case death bubble is bad for everyone, it's not world-ending for faster-than-light species.

Twilight smiled. "That's what makes it a perfect challenge for Equestria. In fact, some of our best creatures are already on their way. As soon as they hear we're members of the Compact, they'll go to work. It's time to change some minds."

We'll have to see why the Zecrin are so closed off. If they are unwilling to work with magic-less people then it's going to be hard right at the gate.

Sigh
There's always at least one in every bunch. Hopefully that number doesn't rise…

The translator grinned back. “Good. We deathworlders should stick together.”

"Humans are space orcs"?

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Also there is this video, with gorgeous visuals and music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP44EPBMb8A
You're welcome! :twilightsmile:

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:rainbowlaugh: Outstanding. I wish Discord were here. I'm pretty sure he'd make Dali's head explode within five minutes of meeting him.

"Once it begins, vacuum decay will accelerate in all directions at the speed of light, utterly annihilating all matter that it comes in contact with"...
"Oh, you mean this?" *proceeds to initiate aforementioned decay at the point over the table then freeze it when it reaches about a feet in diameter* "I really don't understand what are you so afraid of. It makes for a perfect lamp, you know."

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Can't argue Equestria qualifies as a DeathWorld, not as high ranked as Earth as Equestria has less "wild" weather. Makes sense why humans are comfortable around ponies, the statistical anomalous similarities in culture, flora and fawna make them seem un-alien to humans.

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I think Discord would be strictly Forbidden to interact with the Compact, he'd frigging terrify everyone!

Ok how will the Zercin react to Smolder? I can imagine what amounts to Space Kobolds are going to be very interested in Dragons.

Oh cool, another sect of religious zealots. It's gonne be interesting to see what approach the Young Six will take to convince Zecrin to join the war effort. The concept of helping non-magical beings survive isn't going to go far, but perhaps they could appeal to their own sense of self-preservation, or maybe they would help Equestria if they were actually under attack.

Comment posted by Raistlin deleted Oct 13th, 2022

So don’t eat anything, and don’t, uh… harvest any love.”

Ah, euphemisms.

Oh boy. Zealous aliens with very strong opinions on personhood. This is going to be tricky. Though I do like the reason why the Student Six specifically are the ambassadors. Those relics should come with their rightful heirs. Let’s just hope the locals can detect more passive magic.

I'm surprised the zecrin aren't joining the enti in reshaping the universe. Not sure how this plan is going to work if they see the enti as nothing more than "peaceful" settlers.

Lol, they brought potentially apocalyptic weapons on a diomatic mission. That's like bringing nukes to a negotiation in case things go bad. Being advanced magical beings, I doubt they'll miss it. I can see this causing some major issues.

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Honestly, I'd probably rank Equestria much higher than Earth. Yes, ponies control the weather in their home nation. But I don't think they do that across the entire globe unless something changed in the finale/ next generation. Also, their nation still has magic phenomenon, flora, fauna, and straight-up monsters like Tatzulwurms. And that goes for the rest of the world, too.

Well, this seems to be going well. I find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I'll enjoy the time before that while it lasts. Let's hope a bunch of religiously zealous carnosaurs have accommodations for every diet.

Looks like the zecrin knows equestria's association with the stellar compact. It's an important fact for them to know. But it's going to take a lot to convince them to fight together against the Enti. Even if the Enti are striking against everyone.

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Haven't we basically had confirmation that Zecrin food is inedible to outworlders, regardless of whether it's vegetarian or not?
Not sure how the Y6 are going to survive in this world, unless they plan on eating nothing but whatever they brought with them.

I wonder if in this universe Equestria orbits their sun, or the other way around like in Cannon?

That's the thing to be afraid of. The Zecrin already have a diplomatic relationship with the Enti. The Enti seem selective with who they enslave. And unless they're secretly plotting behind the Zecrin's back, it's going to be hard to convince the Zecrin to turn against a people that have been nothing but friendly.

Ah, yes, of course they're friendly with each other. Already this is giving me strong vibes of your story with the sentient and sapient plants. Just like them, these magical beings believe everyone not like them aren't even truly conscious. No soul. I like the theme, it's fascinating.

A aggressively Relegious species is ok with slaverly? How surprising. Of course the hurdle to overcome is the Zercin delusion that most life forms don't really exist. They refer to them as Phenomena, not even as animals.

Hmm, seems some Zecrin are non-magical. Would be hard to reconcile slavery of their own but complete openness to other (magical) races otherwise. Also would help explain the origin of their religion. A complicating development if true. Down with the magocracy?

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I think you would hit the nail on the head. The ones with chains are the ones without magic, and therefore are less than animals.
In human terms this would be like modern day Earth ruled by the Gods living in Mount Olympus. Those without God like Powers would be powerless, and those born with the god-like powers would all have a self reinforcing belief in their own unquestionable divinity.
Conveniently ignoring the fact that in every aspect their are as human as everybody else with one evolutionary quirk separating them from the rest of humanity.

Whatever this doctrine is, I don't think Equestria will be willing to follow it. It seems pretty messed up.

Oh boy. This is going to be exceedingly awkward. On the other hand, it’s theoretically possible to negotiate with the Enti directly. Heck, it may actually be easier, depending on their reasons for depersonalizing nonmagical species. We’ll have to see.

Geeze, I wonder where the Enti is getting their intelligence from

Daayyyyum. That's some serious pressure. Here's hoping they're up to the task.

Also, based on the description, I'm getting a kind of pseudo-Eywa (from Avatar) vibe about this planet. Kinda cool.

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