Vanillin proved to be one oxygen atom too many, but the other flavorings- and all the oils and fats, even the kerosene- turned out to be perfectly acceptable, with limitations.
The party, with comings and goings, ended up lasting for three days, partly because, after Tinat's second deep slurp of congealed fruit-mix coconut oil, he passed out asleep at the observation window. The dawn woke him the next day, to the sight of Pinkie Pie and a large, deep-blue native who introduced herself as Luna. After a brief conversation, Tinat had rigged a remote communicator to one of his probes and let her talk with the navigator back aboard the ship while Pinkie Pie got her friends back for the day.
This time going easy on the native food (the cinnamaldehyde was a familiar flavor, but most of the others were exotic bordering on the bizarre), he spent the entire day and well into the night conversing with Pinkie Pie and what were, apparently, her closest friends. The blue one asked questions about his ship until she got bored with what she called prespawn-head stuff. The purple one picked up where the blue one left off, digging into Konsoran science and comparing it to the "magic" the natives used.
The yellow one explained the function and habits of the various animals who lived around where the ship had landed, while Tinat described the motile life of his world. A newcomer, mostly orange, asked about raising foodstock, and Tinat described the thermal vent farms in his homeworld's lakes while asking about the sessile life the natives ate. A white one, with a horn on its head similar to the purple one, asked for a closer look at his laboratory cloak and then sketched out something that, so far as he could tell, would either make him intensely attractive or get him run off his home planet under sumptuary laws.
And before and after each, again and again, Pinkie Pie tried to make Tinat laugh. Her facial contortions had rather the opposite effect- those mouthparts, teeth, still frightened him terribly. The puns, of course, died in translation. And a lot of the other jokes depended on knowledge he just didn't have. But... every once in a while, Pinkie would stumble across something their cultures had in common (mostly embarrassment humor), and Tinat's resonator would thrum uncontrollably.
For her part, Pinkie laughed at almost all Tinat's jokes, even the puns. He knew she couldn't possibly understand most of them... but there was something about that bubbly sound, that popping resonance Tinat could just hear over the computer translated thrum, which made him feel better about himself.
And, of course, every moment of it was recorded, even while he was asleep.
He awoke again towards sunset of the third day, and Pinkie was still there, though the trees had been draped with banners saying, according to the computer, Thanks for coming- have a safe trip home. Larger containers of Pinkie's mixtures had been brought in "for the road," though the blue one cautioned him to not "eat and fly."
And there was one other newcomer- the largest one yet, almost entirely white, with head-tail fibers that glittered and moved and shifted like a stellar nebula. This, it turned out, was the native ruler, who had come to see the visitor for herself.
There was some brief diplomatic chat, with the captain joining in on the communicator, and while the captain declined to give the ruler the location of their homeworld- one good experience with natives didn't outweigh three disastrous ones- he did agree to provide a communicator in case Konsori ships visited the system again. In return she gave permission for several long-term robotic probes to land in particular points within her realm, so that science would continue even after Tinat left.
And then it was just him and Pinkie, the others having cleaned away the decorations and the food.
"Well, told ya I'd throw you a party," she said.
"Yes, I was wrong," Tinat admitted. "Though I wouldn't be surprised if your foods get outlawed by my people." He bent one leg to rub his belly ruefully. "I'm still a bit warm from it. Very strong."
Pinkie giggled. "Don't tell the older ponies!" she said. "They already think I corrupt their kiddies!"
Tinat sighed. "I won't get a chance to," he said. "I won't ever come back. You know this."
"I know," Pinkie nodded. "But we had fun while you were here, and that's what counts."
"Yes, well..." Tinat shuffled his feet. "You were very helpful. Thank you for everything." His claw-hands flexed unconsciously. "I don't know if my captain thinks you were helpful, though..."
"Eh, just give him some of the cinnamon olive oil," Pinkie grinned. "That'll wash the grumpy right out of him!"
"Excuse me," Tinat said, "I'm keeping that for myself. He can settle for the acetoin-laced kerosene."
The two of them shared one last laugh.
"Well, goodbye, Tinat," Pinkie said. "Hope you make more friends on the next world you visit!"
Tinat raised his forebody up to full elevation. "Only if they're friends like you. Goodbye."
His ship, of course, did not spew fire when it took off, and thus it was barely visible in the light of the hell-world's moon as it left its hilltop hiding place and took to the skies. Part of Tinat wished it made more of a show in flight, so the pink one and her friends on the ground could see him off.
Another part of Tinat wondered whether his final report could be phrased so as to save his career, or if the treasure trove of cultural data would be enough for that.
But the majority of him was trying to figure out how he could conceal the maximum amount of Pinkie Pie's concoctions from potential confiscation by the rest of the crew.
Pinkie Pie had said she would make treats he could digest.
And, if you set aside the hangovers, she had certainly succeeded.
Author's Note: Well, that's that!
First and foremost: this was released, bit by bit, as it was written for my Patreon supporters. This will be my new policy going forward, because I very much need to get my Patreon funding back up. If you'd like to get the stuff as it comes off the plate, please pledge something every month here.
If it wasn't clear, Tinat's native environment was inspired by Saturn's moon of Titan, where it is possible that simple hydrogen-metabolizing life might exist. In fact, just such a thing is given as an explanation for the presence of a higher level of molecular hydrogen in Titan's atmosphere than solar wind or the proximity of Saturn can account for.
Of course, there are problems with such an environment producing even multicellular animal life, let along a technologically advanced intelligent species. Any species made of components that would melt in Earth-normal temperatures would almost certainly not have the kind of metabolism that makes movement at our speeds of motion possible. The heat produced by muscle action alone would cook them. And there's the question of how you forge metal when you can't light fires for lack of an oxidizer, or indeed where you get the metal on a body made up at least half of water ice and/or liquid water. To which my answer is: do you really think ponies are the only species in the universe with magic?
Tinat's body structure is more or less based on the joke: Sooner or later all animal life evolves into either a crab or a beetle. (Don't believe me? Think about this: apes are descended from a primate ancestor that, at least briefly, toyed with returning to the water (which is why we're missing so much hair). And we have strong "pincers" on the ends of our arms. We're rats that evolved towards crabdom.) Instead of a larynx, they have a muscular membrane on their bodies that they vibrate for sound-based communication. Their respiratory and digestive systems are totally separate, which is why Tinat has an air intake between his eyestalks and, separately, a proboscis for sucking down liquid and semi-solid hydrocarbons.
Why does Konsorian life have DNA? Because we've picked up signs of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, literally floating free in nebulas and, yes, in the atmosphere of Titan and the icy surfaces of certain other of Saturn's moons. Earth life uses only a comparatively small set of the hundreds of possible amino acids. Amino acids and proteins are made up (mostly) of four elements- hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. Roughly speaking, seventy percent of the universe's matter that isn't dark matter is hydrogen; one percent is oxygen; half of one percent is carbon; and one-tenth of one percent is nitrogen. If you leave out the non-reactive elements helium and neon, those are the four most common elements in nature. So it makes sense that most carbon-based life, as we would recognize it, would use amino acids, and thus end up with something pretty similar to DNA.
Now, why is oxygen a poison to Tinat? Because, as it turns out, if you leave out water, oxygen is for some reason in short supply on Titan. We haven't found any non-organic oxides except for water, and even organic oxides are in short supply. I didn't find anything in my reading that gave an explanation for why, but if I had to guess, it would be because the vast number of oxides we know on Earth and on other inner solar system objects happened because of the much greater heat closer to the sun. Titan (and of course Tinat's much larger ice homeworld) would have had a lot of heat in its formation, to be sure, but any oxides formed that way would probably be at the small rocky core, hidden from the surface by thousands of miles of cryoices. Anyway, since a Titan-like environment doesn't and wouldn't have free oxygen, anything that evolved in it would find significant amounts of oxygen to be a serious problem.
In fact, we have proof of concept of that on Earth. In the past seventy-five or so years, scientists discovered extremophile bacteria genetically like nothing else on Earth. They live in deep rocks and around underwater volcano vents, and they metabolize sulfur for energy. And they absolutely cannot abide free oxygen.
The current theory is that these are the last survivors of the earliest bacteria, archaeobacteria, on Earth, back when our atmosphere was mostly volcanic gases and, yes, methane. Then one of those bacteria learned the trick of turning carbon dioxide and sunlight into energy, producing oxygen as a waste product. The cyanobacteria were so successful that they polluted the atmosphere with oxygen, causing the global temperature to plummet as the greenhouse effect ended... and killing virtually all the bacteria on the planet, including most of its own kind. The only thing that saved life on this planet was that, while oxygen levels were climbing, some bacteria evolved to live on that instead of sulfur, and those bacteria were the ancestors of almost all life on Earth, including us.
This, of course, begs the question of why a similar oxygen crash didn't happen to Tinat's Titan-like homeworld. For purposes of this story, it can keep on begging.
Anyway, even the extremophile bacteria, who can't deal with molecular oxygen, have some in their systems, in the form of water and proteins. They get oxygen from their food and from water, in small amounts, and use chemical processes to turn it into parts of themselves. Konsori life, including Tinat's people, are the same, but on a vastly larger scale. A very little oxygen is tolerable, but a lot is not. The dose makes the poison.
This story was inspired in large part by Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary, which centers on a first contact with an intelligent alien with no ability to directly perceive light. I considered going the same route with Tinat, but decided against it because Titan, at least, does have a little light at its surface. Despite being a billion miles from the Sun and usually covered in thick cloud or haze, high noon on Titan is still about four times brighter than full moonlight on Earth. You could read a book by it (if you're not getting old like I am).
So, since it's not pitch black, there would definitely be an evolutionary advantage to some form of sight. That said, light would be... tricky... on a Titan-like world. I don't know if Konsor is tidally locked to its planet, but it's likely. Titan definitely is. That means the level of light you get would depend on where on its surface you were, and a solar day, being effectively the same as the orbital period around the planet, wouldn't have that much meaning, especially when you might get almost as much visible light reflected off the planet as from that distant star. That's why I went down the rabbit hole with timekeeping. Natives of a Titan-like world would have seriously different concepts of the passage of time from us (and from ponies).
I confess that when I started this I thought fats had more oxygen content. Nope. Glycerides (which is what most fats are) are basically hydrocarbon chains capped by a glycerol molecule, which is the only part that has oxygen in it. Triglycerides are three hydrocarbon strings linked together at one end by a stack of glycerol molecules. And since I'd already established that the autrenkts can metabolize a little oxygen, but not huge amounts like you get in starches and sugars, triglycerides gave me a less nauseating avenue than where I was originally going- namely, petrochemicals.
It's not easy to get information on the molecular structure of natural or artificial flavorings, in no small part because a lot of them are extremely long and complex compounds, or even mixtures of compounds. The ones I named here, in addition to being among the most common, are among the simplest in chemical structure. (Incidentally, vanillin is actual, genuine vanilla extract's core compound. I didn't go for artificial vanilla because, well, I don't think even Fluttershy could talk beavers into having their anal glands milked on a regular basis, and that's where substitute vanilla comes from in our world. So, ready to switch to chocolate ice cream yet?)
There's probably other stuff I thought of in the writing of this that I haven't listed here. If anybody asks about it, I might add to this. But for now, I'm posting this final chapter and then calling this story complete. Hope you enjoyed this bit of warm fluffy stuff about a cryogenically cold alien and the pony who fed him!
EDIT: Nobody's noticed it yet, but in a couple of places Tinat's translator has Pinkie using the word "forge" in association with cooking. That's because Tinat's people don't cook, as such- that is, they don't use heat to prepare food. They often mix things together, or soak them in liquid methane or some other hydrocarbon that's liquid in their environment and let them decompose a bit, but they didn't get fire until they learned how to make oxidizers. (Well, technically they had fire, but never for very long at a time, and there was always a funeral when the flames sputtered out.)
So, if they don't have fire, how do they have forges? Well, metal tools would depend on metallic meterorites providing iron that can be cold-wrought with nothing but a lot of pounding. Plus, their world is mostly but not entirely icy, and it has tides from its mother planet that power not just geysers but a few actual volcanic vents (which also bring up metallic deposits near the surface). So, some good heat shielding and really long tools would let them use volcanic vents to smelt metal (or at least get rid of a lot of the impurities).
(Note: Konsor is inspired by Titan. It is not a copy of Titan- which, though we've identified many possible cryovolcano locations, none of them is confirmed. It's a lot bigger, so that Tinat could function on an Earth-like world without being crushed into grease. Titan's surface gravity is a little less than our moon's. It's much larger than our Moon and almost twice as massive, but it's vastly less dense.)
Of course, the dangers of above-zero-Celsius heat being what they would be, the autrenkts would have incredible motivation to prioritize remote control or purely autonomous machines to do the metal-making for them. Luckily for them, their environment gives them a head start on superconductors by already being incredibly cold.
But anyway, the point is, if you gave a definition of cooking leaving out the whole concept of food- something like, "Taking a substance and using tools to heat it until chemical and structural changes result"- an autrenkt will guess the word in quesiton is "forge", because forging metal is the only process they could conceive of that does that.
Of course, not heating food brings about questions of disease. If intelligent life evolved in a cryonic environment, almost certainly they have their own microbes and probably even viruses. My guess is such are disposed of chemically or through other biological means, or by just having an intensely aggressive immune system. (Which, come to think of it, might explain how spontaneous combustion in a cryonic environment is even possible...)
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11541883
I figured you probably had a specific episode/movie in mind behind it, I just had no way of narrowing it down to which one. "A Private Little War" makes perfect sense in retrospect though, given the context.
No, actually--already too attached to my vanilla ice cream, and I already knew where substitute vanilla flavoring is derived, so...not really so fazed by it anymore.
Anyway, I enjoyed this story, but I especially enjoyed Tinat and his species. Most "ponies meet aliens" fics just have them meet humans (as you yourself are no doubt aware
), which is fine, but its nice to see a story that has them meeting an alien that would be genuinely alien to us humans just as much as it would be to them, and it's what really makes this fic stand out from the others for me. 
I hope the ultimately positive encounter with the ponies helps urge the autrenkts to be a little less afraid of making first contact in the future. I get their reasons for caution, and Tinat's captain is right--one out of four doesn't exactly make a trend. But you can't exactly ever overcome that problem by staying forever afraid of it either. It actually made me think of a webcomic I've been following in which featured a space-faring species that, due to similar first few bad first contacts, was paranoid of making direct contact with any intelligent species not their own but as a result were missing out on a lot of the wonders of the universe (among possibly other things that have been implied but not yet revealed at the time of this comment) and I'd hate to see the autrenkts fall for the same trap. So hopefully Pinkie and co. at least proved to them there can, and likely will, be exceptions from time to time, enough to try and at least keep a more open mind to it.
Well this was a fun story, thanks for telling it!
This was a lovely little story, and I'm very glad Pinkie managed to have her party for the alien. Any chance we get to see a continuation of this?
Wonderful story overall, very flavourful and fun. Would love to so more of Tinat in the future.
That was delightful! I love the idea that the aliens' first positive First Contact was with a "deathworld" XD Honestly it kind of makes sense that, if you got past the initial terror of each other, you'd be able to make peaceable relations with a race from a world so different from yours that there's basically NO risk of either world having any reason to invade the other. I enjoyed this immensely, great return to the main cast and a fun bit of science besides! Thanks for sharing!
Very fun story, and another step on trying to get round to doing the entire evolutionary sequence from simple atomes and molecules to self replicating dynamically stable structures and ecologies.
time to crank up the pressure and reduce the temperature and redo Millers brew for methanogenesis?
Well done!
Bravo! A wonderful story!
Fantastic story. Using an alien from a decidedly non-Terran environment was an inspired choice. And I love how despite being such a different kind of creature from such a wildly different environment to our own, you opted not to depict Tinat as some pseudo-eldritch blue-and-orange-morality-operating enigmatic being, and more just, well...a different kind of person. It's a very refreshing take on a sci-fi alien depiction, and fits in very nicely with the values Twilight and her friends hold to.
It's been a long time since I felt like I could call a Fimfic a "new favorite", but for the brilliance of the premise and the sheer fun had reading, I think I'm justified in calling this one.
Two thumbs way up. 👍👍
Ah, I see. Ponies live on Space Australia, compared to everybody else that species has met.
You wrote this much faster than I expected! It was a great story and I love how Pinkie was able to think her way around a situation that seemed impossible in typical Pinkie fashion. She was her party-loving, energetic self, yet didn't come across as annoying to me. It shows how much she cares for others and highlights Pinkie Pie's good qualities. The alien character was nicely written as well, being much different from a pony and needing different requirements for living. It's much more unique than writing a random human as the alien. Overall, I'd rate this story a 9/10. Not 10 because it was a bit short. At least it wasn't dragged out and didn't overstay its welcome.
11542404 Not really. I began writing this March 8 or so and did one or two writing sessions per week, posting the results as Patron-only posts on my Patreon. I did a little tweaking (not really a full edit) and posted everything in the same day, but I had it pretty much all ready to go days before. When I've given my full attention and energy to a project (not really possible right now) I could do this amount of story in about a week, or even (if I'm especially motivated, have zero schedule conflicts,. and don't need to do research) two days.
11542358 Worse than that. Some people can actually live in Australia. From his point of view, Tinat's found things alive, happy and well on the barbecue grill.
This story hits so well on so many levels, and not just for the main plot hook. A well written Pinkie has a lot of dimensions that tend to be left out in favor of bland one note randomness, and you absolutely nailed it. Good Pinkie is smart and thoughtful, just in a way that has very little filter and doesn't quite line up with the usual kind without assistance.
11542427
Fair point. So it’s like Australia’s Australia to them. With a bit of Florida cut up on top.
11542837
How dare you outnerd me?
That's fine, I'm sure Rot Lop Fan will visit Equestria another day. Until then, it's enough that it and the rest of the universe is protected by the F-Sharp Bell Corps!
(And yes, that reference is obscure, belaboured and, worst of all, refers to comic book science in the comments of a moderate-to-hard sci-fi story, but screw you, I stand by it.)
11541927
So, from what little research I did, it seems like, while the chemical in question - castoreum - can be used for artificial vanilla flavouring, it's far too rare and expensive for use in mass-market products to be practical. One source said it's more commonly used in perfumes, but I'm not prepared to make any statements about anything like that, though.
Thing is, though, even before I learned that, when I read what you said and believed it to be likely... it still didn't affect how much I like vanilla ice cream beyond making me even more appreciative of good vanilla flavouring. Then again, my attitude towards most foods is "As long as none of my senses say it's disgusting at the point where it goes into my mouth and no people or animals have been tortured to make it (at least that I'm aware of), it can get in my body with the rest of 'em." I don't know if that's the healthiest attitude to have, mentally or physically, but it's just how my mind's decided to do things.
Anyway, very enjoyable little story, with an excellent balance of sci-fi, fun and good character work. If nothing else, it's always a rare treat to have a Strange-But-Not-Stupid Pinkie. Best of luck in the contest - obviously I'm not judging or anything, but you're definitely a good contender in my book.
This fanfic is actually genius.
Follow for follow, OP?
Well, positive first contact. Hopefully Tinat doesn't get into too much trouble. After all, the entire situation's all on Pinkie.
11543048
Don't you dare ignore me! Yes or no! I strongly suggest you say no, because I am really annoying! I think.
11543052 Early indications would suggest your self-appraisal is correct, but it's too soon for me to be sure.
This was such a joy to read!
11542358
Ah, Space Australia. Reminds me of Namek. PLEASE tell me there's a red pony with a long white mane named Jeice.
11541477
My Search-fu has failed me. Exclaim could you please enlighten via a link and/or explanation what you mean by "cryogenic vacuum", and how it could serve as the basis for a creature's biology?
11543405 Pretty sure it wasn't meant as a compound term. They're referring to stellar beasts as magic creatures from an incredibly cold, airless environment, or so I read it.
I knew there was a joke in the story name, but couldn't see it until it just hit me like 'me Tarzan, you Jane'. Bravo. Well done, sir.
Wait, the ship’s gravity generator is powerful enough to potentially kill the ponies if they’re too close when it takes off. But, it has no effect on the surrounding terrain? No leaves or bark knocked off trees? No animal burrows in the soft dirt crushed? Nothing?
11543886 The burrows did indeed get crushed, but the inhabitants had ample warning to evacuate.
The trees weren't directly and immediately under the antigrav, so they came through all right. The bushes on the edge of the copse, not so much, but there weren't many, or else the opening wouldn't have appealed as a hidey-hole for a ship in the first place.
That was a amazing story, further is that the longest Autor note i ever see... Impressive in many ways!
Now 151 likes
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What is the story title suppose to be a pun of?
Extremely creative and enjoyable story!
11545230 It's just a take on the visual pun "me thane" combined with the old "Me Tarzan, you Jane" line (which Tarzan IIRC never actually said).
Your science is a bit out of date, I'm afraid. The aquatic ape hypothesis is not generally considered credible; our lack of hair is almost certainly an adaptation for long-distance running. Archaea are also bloody well everywhere - we noticed the extremophiles first, but it turns out they're everywhere, including in us, and they're not considered bacteria any more.
On the subject of castoreum, if you want to be sure your vanilla-flavored stuff is made with vanillin and not beaver scent glands, just buy certified kosher stuff (at least the stuff that's kosher to most Orthodox standards - the certifying agencies are very diligent about supply chains).
That was some really fun sci-fi. Especially the author's note at the end.
I love the story from beginning to end. The science stuff was cool too.
He thinks he got problems with the ponies....what happens when he finds use humans.
Fun story, it reminded me a bit of Hal Clement’s “Iceworld”
I came here for the story, I stayed for the nerdgasm of an explanation.
ahaha, love Rarity
aww, love Pinkie poignance
so it was unintentionally very much a party!
ooh, i was wondering about that!
very fun sci-fi, and great work in telling such a hard sci-fi story while maintaining the tone of the canon show. definitely learned a lot about chemistry myself. thank you for writing!
Note that the mammalian tendency is towards weasels.
In any case, great fun all around. Pinkie will throw a party for you, whether you like it or not. Brilliant design for the life barely as we know it and the rather hard science of the solution. Thank you for a delightful read.
Regarding the ice cream thing, I'd rather eat beaver ass than support child slavery, which much of the chocolate industry still does.
Anyway, fun fic.
Love it. It's perfect.
11564114
Would love to see Mesklinites interacting with ponies. And I'm pretty sure Barlennan and Applejack would get into some serious horse-trading. Pun intended.
11564114
yes I would like him to stay more