Third Planet, Yellow Star
Third planet, yellow star
Tell us where your children are
We have come here from afar
To answer their invitation
- "Absent Hosts", Unreal Estate
After a long period of failed attempts, it was decided that magic, not technology would pilot the return message.
Even with help from the non-Equine races, Equis lagged far behind human technologial advances, though the age of the craft made this even more obvious. If the estimated million year origin was accurate, the vessel would likely be primitive to any humans now, their species many times older than ponies. Even if they'd wanted to, however, copying the original ship was impossible, even once the crash site was sectioned off and the wreckage taken for examination. Too much of it had been destroyed from the entry into the atmosphere, and much of what had survived that was annihilated upon hitting the ground.
Instead, the creatures of Equis would rely on something much more familiar to them — magic. Statis spells, teleportation, and trackers were common enough already. All that was needed was a container and a plan.
Eventually, a return craft was made. Instead of metal like the humans, theirs used ancient, persevered oak, twisted with gems and more than a few protection and preservation spells. Patterns in the wood and jewels would make sure it wasn't mistaken for any sort of debris. Runes for teleportation were carefully etched into the back by Equestria's best and brightest. A teleportation circle — but not one that would in any way be called "simple".
Runes were already uncommon when a only third of the pony population had horns, and with only very few of them who knew any complicated spellwork that would require such a thing. Only a select group of ponies could write them beyond a few lines, and it was this group, as well as the Princesses, who made the design.
It was a sort of steadily increasing teleportation loop. While it would need ignited by horn at first, the runes would eventually leech magic and energy from their surroundings, perpetuating the cycle. First it would only teleport a the length of a small town. Then twice that. Then four times. Then eight, steadily increasing each time the loop began, until it was reaching distances that would be impossible to measure.
Such a spell was barely theoretical, and the energy required for the initial lighting beyond the capabilities of even many of the most talented unicorns. However, it was decided that they wouldn't be alone — the best of Equestria's current magic users, as well as all four princesses, would be just enough to start the loop.
Many ponies were skeptical of course. Even after much waiting, then trepidation as they waited to see if the launch would be a success, learning it had been only soothed initial questions.
What if it took too long to arrive? What if the location it headed to was wrong? What if the container was hit by an asteroid, or destroyed by radiation, or there were no humans left to receive it? If they got it, what if their reply took another million years to reach them?
Would humans even still be alive?
There was nothing to do but wait and hope.
Maia Troyer, vanquisher of asteroids, former senior archivist of the Homeworld, namer of many species from beyond Earth...nevertheless had a terrible cold.
She scanned the skies again regardless, annoyed but unperturbed. Her job these days was a relatively thankless to most in terms of excitement, and often subject to many pointless questions, but Maia would never say she disliked it.
For millenia, humans had always searched for intelligent life beyond the Homeworld. At first, it was simply looking for radio signals. Then sending physical craft. But those days were so long ago that only scant records had survived, only preserved based on the very scant chance a reply would be received.
Eventually, the effort expanded. As humans began to leave the planet, there were, of course, explorers among them. At first only the Solar System was searched. Nothing. Then the nearby dwarf planets. No luck. Finally, the closest exoplanets. No signs of life were found, though occasional traces of it were — signs of previous biology on now lifeless worlds.
Then there was a breakthrough. Life, in its most basic forms, was discovered on far-distant skies. Single celled organisms, scatterings of minor flora and fauna — but nothing intelligent, nothing that could be communicated with, not even to the level of the more sentient of Homeworld's animal populations.
Many gave up. If other intelligent life was out there, it was said, it likely wasn't around anymore. Perhaps it had self destructed, gone extinct, or never even existed in the first place. Surely if something as old as humanity, or even older, was still around, it would be discovered by now. Surely, other societies, if they existed, would also ponder the Great Paradox?
Maia refused to believe such things. The universe was vast. It still expanded every day, and only so much of it was able to be observed. Mapping was slow going even with the latest technology, so maybe something was there — it was just too far away, or not advanced enough, or was hiding. Maybe other species just flat out didn't care or weren't curious enough to leave their planets of origin.
Maia was one of the few who still desperately looked for signs of life from the cosmos, always yearning for proof of any intelligence beyond Homeworld's own.
Yet the skies remained as silent as they'd always been.
It was disheartening, but at least the simple life proved existence could be born from planets other than the Homeworld. Perhaps one day there'd be a signal, a message, a ship, something. Maybe she was just fooling herself, but in a way, Maia found that her job gave her an odd sense of purpose. If it was all for naught, at least the messages she sent out may be discovered by other humans, farther in the future. At least if humanity ever died off, any civilizations billions of years from now may find the artifacts they sent, so they might be remembered and known. It gave her a different perspective. She didn't have to leave Homeworld like so many others did, she could stay right here and explore in her own way, especially with her body beginning to fail her.
She was just over a century old. As opposed to most, who had forgone biology (whether wholly or partially) for the certainty of steel and artifical flesh, Maia had only the most basic of alterations. The old "uploading panic" from millenia past still haunted the most traditional of Homeworld's human populous, and while Maia wasn't so extreme, she still found the idea of becoming entirely mechanical disquieting.
But that wasn't important right now. She had a job to do, even if her role only existed because of her own interests.
Today, besides the usual scans and answering pointless questions from others that could be solved within a few seconds if they tried, she was doing research. While many old documents hadn't survived the march of time (decay, deletion, and disregard was responsible for larger gaps in information that many realized), those that remained often had hidden gems, even if the details were incomplete.
Some of the first objects humanity of old had sent out into space were probes, meant both for information gathering, and, upon their usage period ending, sent to drift endlessly into space on the rare chance that other life beyond Homeworld would find it and send a reply.
That hadn't yet happened, but it was good to document such things, even when details such as the direction the probes were sent in, or what information they had been originally meant to gather, had been lost to history. Searches had been started to try and find these lost pieces of the past, but such things had yet to be successful, especially considering the distances involved and missing information. The latter set of these probes, ones with primitive recordings of the past, were estimated to take 40,000 years from their launch to reach the nearest star system besides the Sun. It had been a million years since that time, and knowledge as to their direction, status, and appearance had been lost. For all humanity knew, all could have been destroyed by rogue planets or asteroids.
What remained was the records, both written and literal. While Maia lacked details on the exact contents, images and art of the discs had survived, preserved by those before her just in case they were ever re-discovered. Flat, circular, and bright gold, with cases showing maps and diagrams leading to their solar system.
The Golden Records.
Somewhere, in the space between the stars, an object phased back into existence once more.
It literally appeared out of thin air (or lack there of), all but twisting reality around it as it faded into an opaque form once more. A simple amalgamation of oak wood and crystals, sticking out from the simple space debris that surrounded it. While Messenger wasn't truly sentient, all magic was, in a ways, alive, built on the emotions and intent of the caster. It knew where it was headed, and knew it was only a minute at most before it would once again move into the area between worlds to travel another great length.
It wasn't as if Messenger minded. It had no real sense of mind besides keeping track of where it was and avoiding obstacles. It could tell through a brief scan that it still had a ways to go before reaching the "Earth" it had been directed to, but the length of its teleports would mean that it would reach the system that surrounded the planet sooner rather than later.
All it had to do was wait.
Her searching was very rudely interrupted by an obnoxious beeping from one of the monitors, which eventually led to all of them repeating the same noise in synch one after the other. Maia set down the physical documents, blinking blearily. She only then noticed that several hours had passed — the sun outside having gone now and leaving the whole office lit only by the brightness of the screens.
She hadn't received any messages this urgent or in such a multitude since the skies were alight with supernovas so many years ago.
It only took a moment before the realization took effect, and Maia hurried over to the closest screen, both to silence the blaring noise, and to see what the emergency was. If a ship had crashed, she and other nearby humans still on Homeworld might be called to assist. It could be that an asteroid was incoming, though that would usually just cause a warning to brace for impact as it was destroyed, risk of debris raining down slim but possible.
It was no normal message.
Instead, the monitor displayed a series of rapidly flashing pages of information and diagrams. It was almost too fast to track. Maps, confused messages to and from the equally puzzled Space Force, multiple angles of some...object.
It vaguely resembled a cross between a wreath and a bird nest, if such things were knit out of oak branches instead of sticks and scraps and many times that size. But instead of holding eggs, there were purple gems embedded into and in the middle of the wooden mass.
And it was, apparently, manifesting into and out of existence, and heading towards their Solar System.
Some of the messages were to her — asking if it was something humans had sent before — but most were from various scientists and inhabitants that remained on Homeworld, disbelieving what they were seeing or insisting it must be a prank.
It wasn't just visual. The object vanishing and reappearing a distance away was noticed on maps and scans, causing even more disbelief. Not even humans had gained the ability to teleport randomly, not without wormholes at least, and this thing was doing it without any assistance or visible technology.
Tentative explanations were floated. A memorial sent adrift by the recent Sedna Exploration Force? No, they claimed ignorance, and why would they make one like that anyways? Debris launched off Homeworld by accident? It was awfully artistic for it to be a mistake, and using wood in such a manner when it was meant to be preserved would be incredibly daring. The nature reserves were usually strictly guarded.
As Maia watched with the same befuddled fascination, an idea came to her.
It was always assumed that a message from extraterrestrial life would cone in the form of a technological feat greater than humans could create, but perhaps they weren't a mechanical society. No one had ever seen aliens besides the basic life, after all.
If this object was truly coming from deep space, heading their way, teleporting....maybe it was magic. Wasn't there an ancient proverb she'd come across about advanced enough technology being akin to magics? Maybe they were so advanced that what humans saw as "weird wood and crystals" was actually some sort of incredibly advanced machinery?
Thankfully, Maia didn't have to voice her eccentric hopes to the void, as messages repeating this same idea soon came. Of course the Space Force denied such ideas, still apparently believing it was of Homeworld origin, just undocumented.
But then the object vanished again, and when it reappeared moments later, it had somehow moved from the Oort Cloud to just outside of their planet's gravity field.
And stopped.
Though she wasn't in a position to look to see what was happening, Maia saw the dimmed light through her window suddenly brighten into a kaleidoscope of colors.
Then the messages exploded.
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Can't wait!
Will be a sequence to this
?
Please?
11858328
Thank you ^_^. This was going to be the last chapter, but seeing how slow I was being and how much I kept re-writing this whole thing (from scratch nonetheless), I figured I should publish this while I still found it passable and split the chapter.
11858329
There's another chapter! This was meant to be the last, but I decided to split it.
Oh, I like the way this is shaping up! Your vision of a spacefaring humanity was really creative and honestly inspiring.
I wish the ponies' probe was named Message Bearer 😃
11858342
Thanks! It's part of the reason this chapter took so long.
When I set it a million years from now (which was pretty much required — it'll be 40k+ years til' Voyager approaches another star, and if ponies were That Close By, it would be weird if there'd be no signs), I sort of forgot that, say, one thousand years in the future, and one Million years, were vastly different in terms of making guesses. It's why I tried being pretty vague.
The "uploading panic" is a sort of reference to Friendship is Optimal, and the weird shape of the "craft" is a reference to First Contact is Magic.
This was a nice chapter and the humans are clearly confused about the message from Equestria.
Glad to see that humanity has survived and thrived over those million years.
11858411
11858351
Which humans would obviously be, regardless if it's a story or IRL. Humans have always had that tribal tendency toward "Shoot first, then ask questions" sort of mentality.
Here's hoping that the humans in this story prove to be advanced enough to look beyond their fears and make a "discovery" that magic indeed exists, and that this odd thingy of wood and gems is a message from such a thaumaturgical society.
As is the way this fine tale has been going. I guess Sagan would have been amazed, to say the least.
11858488
11858411
11858443
An original idea I had for the ending was similar to the song I quoted at the start of the chapter, but I changed my mind because I thought it would be a downer seeing the rest of the fic is generally positive.
"Absent Hosts" is a filk (space folk) song about aliens finding Voyager, but by the time they receive it, translate/understand it, and travel to Earth, Earth has long since been destroyed in nuclear war and all life on it is dead — and this has possibly been the case since before they even first found Voyager.
But despite the usual negative news cycle nowadays about how Everything Sucks Forever And Humanity Is Screwed, I'd like to think we are A) smart enough to survive as a species, and B) not absolutely doomed. Yeah, things are bad now, but might not always be, especially since I'd hope in a million+ years we'd be cognizant enough to not do things to intentionally worsen the planet.
I always get depressed in these far future stories seeing how Humans have forsaken biological life, or wiped themselves out, or have done any of the other horrible possibilities for our fate.
This one is not quite as depressing. Excited to see more.
11858497
One of the saving graces of us humans: Hope. Without hope, there is no life.
Okay, I admit it: I'm a Trekkie. I have also dipped my finger into studying physics back in the day, specifically astrophysics. I took a course in galactic dynamics, so I am rathe familiar with the science of astronomy. While it was mostly a math course, it did give me a look into the picture of space as a field. I never took on that study, due to circumstances, but if things might have gone well, I probably would have been in that field. Thus, this story has held my attention based on its given premise, and I laud you for sharing this tale.
Especially since it is truly topical at this time, given how Voyager 1 is acting lately...
Oh good greif, I didnt realise Voyager 2 was aimed at Sirius. that gives it a million years less to get out of the sterilisation zone. Even so, it might still be about the only human remnant left roaming the universe. And anyone following it back will have trouble working out how we evolved in time from a destroyed world from the orbit of a blue white giant?
11858349
Well messenger (Nontium in old Ponish) ??
So humanity became spaceborn but still didnt finished properly the sol system exploration So its not that far of a future compared now.
Even with how advanced we are there, we still haven’t vanquished the common cold.
11859149
problem is the "common" cold is a number of ever-mutating viruses that effect us similarly so even if we kill off one of them there are others to take it's place
11859149
11859149
This analysis is correct. That, and with how a cold is typically a very minor ailment (unlike the flu, which can be deadly to people like the elderly or those already in poor health), there's no real reason to make a vaccine for it. We usually make vaccines more so for illnesses that can serious/lethal, not so much so for things that are just annoying.
And even with current vaccines, they aren't always going to protect you all the time. Like, the flu vaccine, IIRC, usually is based on whatever strains of the flu are most common/reported that year. So it may keep you from getting strain A, B, or C, but may not help you if you're exposed to strain D. And if you do catch the strains you're vaccinated against, your symptoms will much likely be more mild. You can't exactly get more mild than a cold, seeing as, again, it's not really able to kill or majorly affect 99.999999% of people.
First contact is always really interesting
You're gonna leave us on a cliffhanger, aren't you?
11860150
This isn't the last chapter, so I hope not! I find stories with zero resolution / that are totally open ended annoying to some degree, so I hope my conclusion will be satisfying enough — though seeing as it's one chapter left, I can't shove a million words there.
11860176
Yeah, I agree.
I've seen some of the older stories on this site where the writer effectively vanished into the æther without even bothering to cancel the story are one of my pet peeves. I get life happens, people move on, etc. I am not one of those self-titled "true fans" who demand satisfaction at every turn, but I would definitely appreciate it if they didn't leave a story on eternal hiatus.
Éste ha sido un capítulo realmente entretenido de leer. Felicito este gran trabajo, la muy buena redacción.
Espero ansioso poder leer más. ¿Qué pasará a continuación?