Celestia Sleeps In

by Admiral Biscuit

Chapter 8: Analysis

Celestia Sleeps In
Chapter Eight—Analysis
Admiral Biscuit

Freshly bathed and groomed, Lyra sat in the central room of the library. Unsurprisingly, Twilight and Luna had been unable to keep their hooves off the materials she’d brought back, and were currently discussing the book with numbers. True to form, the Princess and the unicorn both had notepapers out, and quills floated in their auras.

“Have you come to any conclusions?” Lyra asked sarcastically, tilting her head towards the pile of paper.

“The object—or objects—on each page change. Presumably, the letter written on the page is its label for the object. So, this is a symbol it uses to represent a cookie. This represents birds—“

Lyra sighed. “No, it’s a book for counting. See, there’s one cookie, two birds, and so on.”

“Why doth it have a book for counting?”

Armed with this new information, Twilight quickly flipped through the book and closed it. “It uses this book to count to ten?”

“It can count higher than that,” Lyra countered, shuffling through her own notes. “It—um, hold on—counted to—let’s see, seventeen sixty-eight minus two times one forty-four—fourteen eighty, I think. It doesn’t count right. It adds a second digit at ten.”

“Prithee, why doth it do so?”

“Well, I think that since he has ten digits on its talons, and—“

Twilight interrupted her. “One thousand. You did your math wrong.”

Lyra rolled her eyes. “All right, one thousand. Anyway, he has ten digits on his talons, and ten more on his hind paws. I think his kind probably counted on their foretalons. The words for the numbers reach a semi-regular pattern after twelve, and a fully-regular pattern at twenty. It probably counted each big paw digit individually, and grouped the rest together.”

“But ten isn’t a very logical stopping point. It must be terrible at math. It can’t divide evenly by three or four. Its foals must have a terrible time learning fractions.” Twilight shuddered. “A third would be endlessly repeating. At least with our number system, only sevenths have that property.” She scribbled for a moment on a scrap of parchment. “It does with ten, too. Oh, that’s interesting! I wonder if my math professor knows?”

She looked back at the other two ponies staring at her in bewilderment and blushed. “Er, but that’s not important right now.”

“Our ancestors used to count in fours,” Luna proclaimed. “This was the primary hoof, this the second, this the third, and this the fourth.” She lifted each hoof in turn. “Unicorns found this unsatisfactory, and came up with a tripartite hoof model—the interior heel, exterior heel, and the toe. We and our sister mandated that system be used exclusively forthwith, although some more rustic enclaves of Earth Pony society still insist on using the quarter system, despite its obvious limitations. Some evidence of it lingers yet, such as the four cardinal points.”

“This creature only has four digits on its talons, and three on its hind paws,” Twilight stated, tapping the book. “But you said it had ten digits—five per talon.”

“He doesn’t look anything like that.” Lyra pointed at the black book Dale had identified gross anatomy from. “A drawing of his type is in here.” She started flipping through the book.

Luna held up a hoof. “Hold, please. Canst thou give us a summary of thy meeting?”

Lyra sighed. She really just wanted to go to bed, but of course Luna and Twilight just had to know—right now—how her meeting with Dale had gone.

“He had difficulty with the peace symbols,” she began. “He looked at them for a long time. I’m not sure he even understood what they were, at first. He eventually pantomimed re-breaking the spear, to illustrate his peaceful intentions.”

“When he came over, I showed him the first book—the one that’s in all the languages. He didn’t understand any of them.”

“We expected that,” Twilight interrupted.

“But he did spend a lot of time studying it. We exchanged names, too. I didn’t understand what he was getting at right away, although I should have expected it. After all, it’s the civilized thing to do.

“After that, we went through the alphabet. He started with his own. It has fifty-two letters, although there are apparently only twenty-six distinct letters, each with two forms. I had to use a voice-lowering spell to make myself understood. Then we ate lunch.”

“What doth the creature eat?”

“He had a sandwich with some kind of flesh on it.”

“Is it a predator?” Twilight looked concerned.

“No, I think it eats carrion.” She thought for a moment. “I gave him a carrot, which he kept. After lunch, he showed me his calendar, and we decided to meet again in two days. Then he revealed a book which is apparently a reading primer for his foals, and we went through that.

“He demonstrated verbs, and I mimicked them, to show that I understood. At one point, he was demonstrating the verb for jump, and I tried to jump like he did—off his hind legs—and fell forward. Instead of moving back, he stepped forward.”

She had felt her balance go, just as her hind hooves had come up off the sand. Reacting instinctively, she leaned forward so that she would land on all four hooves, and cast a slowing spell. Suddenly, he had darted towards her. Before she could even react, she had accidentally struck him with a hoof, and knocked him off-balance, too. Instead of trying to roll, and land with his legs under him, he grabbed for her, pulling her into a tight embrace. She felt her heart racing—it might only be a fraction of a second before she felt teeth on her throat—as the two of them fell. Every instinct was telling her to defend herself, but she remembered Princess Celestia’s words, and did nothing but close her eyes, waiting for the inevitable. Maybe it isn’t a carrion eater. Maybe it prefers fresh meat—fresh ponies. Even with him pinning her against his chest, she could feel that her slowing spell was working. His talons were digging into her fur—something she had never felt before. She could still smell his meal on his breath.

“He grabbed me—I thought he was going to hurt me. My hooves were pinned—but he didn’t. We finished the books, then moved on to counting. Next, I used the marbles. I had to use my magic—I couldn’t move the marbles with my muzzle. At first, he cowered away. He seemed afraid of the marbles.

“After we had finished, he brought out a large book which has a drawing of his anatomy, and named all the parts. He let me take the book, but I think he wants me to bring it back. We were only able to go over a few pages, because it was getting late.

“He brought out another book, which has pictures of the moon and stars, and other things that I couldn’t identify. We looked through that. He seemed to be expecting it to look familiar to me, but it didn’t. Then, he gave me a giant book which he seemed to indicate revealed what was inside of him. A—I don’t know what it would be called.”

“Luna and I looked through that while you were at the spa,” Twilight admitted. “We can make nothing of many of the pictures.”

“I’m sure he is having the same difficulty. I gave him a copy of Your Home, and he seemed confused by the first page.”

“What’s not to understand?” Twilight waved a hoof around. “There’s a lead mare, organizer, guardian, scout, stallion, filly, colt, and foal. A typical, traditional herd.” She rolled her eyes in thought. “Well, at least as Kinstrong described it. The older Tripartite herd model would simply group the—“

“There we are,” Lyra interrupted. “This is a drawing of his—of Dale’s anatomy. Let me get my notes.

“This is called hair,” she began. “Roughly the same as our manes. He had a beard, although the drawing does not have one.” She moved a piece of straw around to show the area it covered.

Finally reaching the bottom of the drawing, Lyra yawned. “His hind paws are called feet. He covered them from here to here with its fetlock corsets.” She turned an ear, hearing the town clock chime twelve times. “I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed.”

“We shall stay up organizing thy notes,” Luna stated.

“I’ll help you,” Twilight said brightly.

“Nay, Twilight Sparkle, thou must rest. We and our sister know how thou dost behave when thou dost miss thy rest.” The princess turned towards Lyra. Unseen, Twilight stuck out her tongue and blew a very quiet raspberry. “Lyra Heartstrings, thou hath done thy realm proud this day. We grant thee a most pleasant night.”

“Thank you, Princess.” Lyra nodded, covering another yawn. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

---

Dale sat in his camp chair, notebooks strewn across a folding table—one of the odder things he’d ever transported in his canoe. Nothing about this trip is normal, he reminded himself.

He was repeating the pronunciation of the words he had learned over and over again. It was hard not to cheat, since the English was written right next to each word. He wished he’d thought to bring flash cards with him. Or a tape recorder. But that wouldn’t work, because of the field.

His mind started turning. What if he built a small Faraday cage, just big enough to hold a tape recorder? The microphone could be placed outside the cage, and the wire could be shielded right to the cage itself. In fact, the microphone could also be kept in the cage. The sound waves would pass right through, but the interference probably wouldn’t.

If she brought the visual dictionary back, he could show her a picture of a tape recorder, and ask if she would mind. He could have brought it with him to the island, and left it at his campsite until he got permission. Dale sighed. This was too big a thing for one man to handle alone. Sooner or later, he was going to have to ask for help.

They were going to have to start meeting on the mainland, too. While this was a good beginning solution, he could hardly be expected to live out here, canoeing back and forth for supplies every now and then. When winter came, there was no way he could safely get to the island. If he’d thought to bring a map, he could have showed her where he lived, and shown her that they were on a remote island.

Looking at his pages of notes, he frowned. He’d been wishing that they’d have a universal translator. Or a tricorder, or something suitably sci-fi. He still held out a faint hope that they’d needed a day of contact with him to pin down what language he spoke, but for that he would have thought they would want to bring down a recording device.

How do I know they didn’t bring a recorder? It could have been concealed in her bags, or even on her body. He had hardly looked over her for hidden wires, after all. He smiled, imagining a team of lab-coated scientists going over the recording, analyzing every frame.

Dale sighed, pushing the notebook away from him. He wanted to keep working on the words, but he simply couldn’t. His vision was blurring, and the Coleman lantern wasn’t the best thing to read by.

He put all his notebooks in Ziploc bags, then closed them in a metal Craftsman toolbox—the former home of his combination wrenches. A couple of rocks he’d found and thrown in the box made certain that it wasn’t going to get snatched up by some curious creature on the island—and if anything happened to him, it would probably be found, eventually. Granted, it would probably appear to be the rantings of a madman, but that couldn’t be helped. Eventually, they’d surely reveal themselves to someone else, and then the notes would be quite useful.

The two books she’d brought also fit nicely. If she kept bringing books this size, he’d do all right. If she brought some the size of Gray’s Anatomy—well, he’d worry about that if it happened.

The carrot—now labeled “Do Not Eat” in Sharpie—reposed in his cooler. Hopefully there was nothing on it that could get through a plastic bag and contaminate the rest of his food.

The three weapons were stacked neatly in his tent. He intended to bring them back to the beach before her next visit. His tent was unusually crowded. Dale tended to only bring what he actually needed on a camping trip, but this time he’d packed enough supplies for a month. If he left early, he planned to cache the extras around the island, to keep things simpler for future visits.

He sat with his feet outside the tent and took off his boots and socks. The boots he set by the flap, then zipped it closed. The socks went in his dirty laundry bag. Pants and shirt came off next; those he folded and placed on top of his duffel bag. They were clean enough to wear for another few days.

Now clad in just a t-shirt and boxers, he slid into his sleeping bag. He had thought the adrenaline high would have worn off, but it hadn’t. Dale tossed and turned half the night, before he finally fell into a deep sleep.

---

Twilight had become well-known throughout Ponyville for her ability—when a project of sufficient interest was involved—to awaken well before anypony else, and to be fully-alert, groomed, breakfasted, and out the door of the library, ready to go at a ludicrously early hour. It was, in fact, an ability in which Twilight took a great deal of pride.

However, early is a relative term; unfortunately, Twilight’s houseguest was the Princess of the Night. Thus it was at five a.m. a hoof began mercilessly prodding Twilight.

“Mmm, just five more minutes, mom,” Twilight muttered, rolling away from the offending limb.

Luna, unwilling to brook any resistance, simply levitated Twilight out of bed and unceremoniously dropped her on the floor—admittedly, only from a height of six inches.

“Make haste, Twilight Sparkle, for we hath much to discuss with thee.” The alicorn began shoving Twilight across the floor of her bedroom, but quickly grew impatient, lifted her over the balcony and deposited her on the main floor of the library.

“We have prepared thee breakfast.” Luna floated a bowl of carrots in front of the woozy unicorn.

Twilight—barely awake—noticed Luna dancing back and forth on her hooves impatiently and suddenly had a horrible vision of being force-fed carrots if she failed to eat them on her own. Despite them not being her ideal breakfast fare, she choked them down as quickly as possible. At least Luna has the patience to let me finish eating. I’d better not ask her to give me five minutes to comb my mane, though. “What’s the hurry?” Twilight muttered around a mouthful of half-chewed carrot. The sun isn’t even up.”

“Certes, we are aware.” Luna looked down at the neatly-stacked books. “However, we feel that some additional expertise would not go amiss with the volume of information we have received. It would do us well to explore it as thoroughly as possible before Lyra Heartstrings returns to meet with the creature on the morrow. ‘Twould be an insult to ourselves and the creature did we not.

“We have made notes on the materials, and we have decided whom we should have provide assistance.” Luna began rummaging through her notes. “We feel that Rarity Belle should be able to provide the most information on the clothing.” She pronounced Belle as if it were a question.

“I think it’s simply Rarity,” Twilight commented. “I’ve never heard her use a second name before.”

“We had thought—her sister.” Luna furrowed her brow. “Perhaps unicorns do things differently these days. We confess, we are more accustomed to nobles giving their names as doth your brother.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “How, exactly, does my brother give his name?”

“Prince Mi Amore Cadenza son of Twilight Velvet, Captain of the Royal Guard.”

Twilight looked at her flatly.

“’Tis how the heralds announce him. Surely, thou dost not suggest that we should fail to state his full title.”

“I just call him ‘Shiny,’” Twilight muttered. The look of horror on Luna’s face was its own reward.

“Thou hast ruined our language and maketh light of pony’s titles. Thou doth celebrate a holiday designed to mock us. Art nothing sacred to thee?”

“Cheesecake?” Twilight offered. “We still really, really respect a good cheesecake.”

Luna rolled her eyes. “Cheesecake. We rue the passing of our formerly civilized society.” She looked Twilight in the eyes. “How could we expect them to appreciate our night, when they only appreciate cheesecake?”

“We do appreciate the night. All the girls came out to watch the meteor shower, and there there were a bunch of other ponies there, too.”

“Do they often come by thy observatory?” Luna tilted her head towards the balcony where Twilight’s telescope currently resided.

“Well . . . Pinkie Pie has.”

A silence grew between the two, until Twilight finally cleared her throat. “So, Rarity’s going to look at the clothing. Who else were you thinking?”

“We believe thy town hath a pony who art extremely qualified with small animals, and we would have her study the drawings in this book which are clearly creatures.” She looked at her notes. “Doctor Mane Goodall—she did receive very high marks at Manehatten University. For drawings of buildings—Mister Bucky Fuller art the most qualified architect of whom we are aware, and he art very discrete. He shall arrive on the morning train. Finally—canst thou trust thy friend Pinkemena Pie to keep a secret?”

“If she Pinkie-promises,” Twilight muttered, still trying to get her head into the conversation.

“Than we shall have her do so, and she shall puzzle out cooking implements.” The princess marked a line on her notes. “There are many other items drawn in this book of which we hath no knowledge: creations which are unique to the world the creature occupies, and for which we hath no words. At a later date, we must attempt to understand their function and come up with descriptive words.” Her eyes lit at the prospect.

“This tome, we are given to understand, contains complete information of the biology of the creature.” She lifted it carefully. “We intend to take it back to Canterlot with us, where the most experienced professors might go through it, that we should gain an understanding of the creature’s fundamental make-up.”

“This book, in its second half, is filled with images of the night sky. We know that thou takest a greater interest in our sky than most ponies.” She sighed regretfully. “Wouldst thou take it as thy personal task, to explore this book?”

“I would be glad to,” Twilight said eagerly. “Will you help me?”

“We regret we cannot. We must return to Canterlot ere long. Our sister is unaware we stayed abroad throughout our night.”

Twilight’s face fell.

“Be sure to report to our sister all that thou hast learned, in the usual way.” The alicorn began walking up the stairs towards the balcony. “We have arranged our notes in a readily-understood fashion. Thou wilt have no difficulty, we are sure. We wish to return after the gloaming, that we and thee may study the astronomical charts together.”

The princess stood on the balcony, wings spread. Unexpectedly, she turned back towards Twilight. “Oh, we forgot to tell thee—as Lyra Heartstrings used musical notation throughout, we felt we ought to find a suitable interpreter. Thus, Octavia Van Clef shall also be on the morning train. Good day!” She leapt off the balcony, teleporting away as soon as she was clear.

Why don’t the princesses teleport from a standing spot? Twilight stared out the open doors in bemusement, before remembering the last words from the princess. A moment later, she was in the bathroom, frantically trying to coax her tangled mane to lie flat.

---

Lyra pushed her blankets off, squinting against the early morning sun streaming through the curtains. Much to her surprise, the smell of coffee was wafting up from downstairs. She sniffed the air thoughtfully, picking out the more subtle smells of biscuits and oatmeal.

Using a hoof-mirror, she brushed her mane—a simpler task than usual. Apparently, the spa ponies had some way of making it mostly stay in order, even after a night’s sleep. Smiling, she made her way downstairs. Bon Bon never made breakfast.

“Morning,” Bon Bon muttered blearily. “I made coffee.” She was sipping her own cup out of a hoof-friendly mug, struggling to keep awake. Her mane was a tangled mess, and dough was splattered on her fur.

“You didn’t have to,” Lyra commented, pouring her own glass.

“I wanted—you’re going to be gone all day, aren’t you?”

“Probably.” Lyra blew on the cup before taking a sip. “Twilight and I have a lot of material to cover. Princess Luna is even helping.”

“I just wish—“ Bon Bon set her mug down. “I know it’s selfish of me, and I know you have a strong sense of duty. But, I liked it better before all this. It was simpler. We had a routine.” She looked sadly at the filthy countertops. “Now look—the kitchen’s a mess, and you’re not going to have time to clean it up. I’ve got baking to do, but I put my last dram of vanilla in the oatmeal, so I’ll have to go get more when the market opens.”

“I’m sure they’ll have some at Sugarcube Corner,” Lyra muttered. “I can get some before I go to the library. Twilight won’t be up yet.” She took another sip of coffee. “Who am I kidding. Twilight’s probably been up for hours. How much vanilla do you need?”

Bon Bon tapped her hoof on the table. “Well, a couple of dozen drams. If they’ve got an extra fifth, that would be ideal. I can get some at the market later, to pay them back.”

“Princess Celestia can’t want me to stop everything in my life,” Lyra declared. “If I’m a little late to meet with Twilight, so be it. I’m doing all the hard work and taking all the risks.” She pointed a hoof at Bon Bon. “You should wash up. I’ll clean up, and ask the Cakes if they’ve got any extra vanilla before I go to the library.”

---

“Coming!” Rarity quickly ran a brush through her mane. The sun was hardly up, and it was way too early for customers. That’s the peril of living at your place of business. She’d just finished making lunch for Sweetie Belle—her parents were in Canterlot—and was halfway finished with their breakfast.

“Welcome to Carousal Boutique! Where—oh, good morning, Twilight.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Of course not.” Rarity gestured with her hoof. “Please, come right in. Sweetie Belle is still asleep, but she should be up before too long. It is a school day.”

“Thank you.” Twilight stepped into the store, wiping her hooves carefully on the rug. “I hate imposing this early in the morning, but I’ve got a long list of tasks to accomplish, and only a single day. You know, of course, about the mysterious creature who Lyra has been meeting. I told you yesterday to remain close—just in case. Well, it turns out that the creature has given Lyra several books, and one of them includes a section on clothing. Luna naturally suggested that I should consult you.”

“I am quite flattered. Please—set the book on my workroom table. I need to finish Sweetie Belle’s breakfast and get my glasses, and I shall be happy to assist you. Oh—and do be sure to look at my new collection of hats. There’s one—it’s on the third ponykin—which would suit you perfectly. I could just put a small amethyst on the band.”

Rarity quickly set out breakfast, before walking upstairs to wake her sister. A few minutes later, Twilight heard water running upstairs, and Rarity came back down, a bejeweled glasses case floating in front of her. Twilight opened the book to one of the marked pages. “There’s over a dozen pages of clothing. Let me know what you think.”

Rarity frowned, adjusting her pince-nez. She flipped a few pages, cleared her throat, and looked Twilight in the eye. “I can make very little of these.”

“But—but you’re the best fashion designer in Equestria!”

Rarity tsked. “Oh, that’s kind of you to say, Twilight. Even if we both know it’s not true.” She tapped a hoof to the page. “These drawings are flat. I could work with that. I do work with that. But—you are asking me to identify clothing when I don’t even know what sort of creature wears it?”

“It’s—well, it’s hard to describe. There are a couple of different types, I think. There’s one that’s got red fur, and a pinkish one. The pink one is the type that Lyra’s been meeting with.” Twilight slid the book back towards herself. “There’s a drawing of it in here somewhere.” She began shuffling through pages.

“Really, this seems quite inefficient. Wouldn’t it be easier to unbind the book, give the relevant sections to each individual pony, and mend it tonight?”

“I can’t,” Twilight commented, still turning pages. “It’s got some kind of magic on it that makes the pages white and the drawings clear. It’s non-Equestrian magic, so I have no idea what sort of disruption I would cause by taking it apart.”

“Mm-hm.” Rarity looked at the book thoughtfully. “How about your copying spell?”

“It’s too many pages. It would take weeks of doing nothing else to—aha! Here we go.” She turned the book so Rarity could see the drawings.

“Presumably, the drawing is of the creature in a restful position. So, it normally stands on its hind legs, like a juvenile dragon.”

“Lyra said it’s about this tall, compared to an adult unicorn.” Twilight drew a line with her hoof on the page.

“About the same height as a tall Diamond Dog.” Rarity flipped to the next set of drawings. “This one is different. It has more curves. I wonder if it’s a mare?” Seeing the look on Twilight’s face, she continued, “Oh, please, Twilight, do tell me you know the difference between mares and stallions.”

“I—well, of course I do. What kind of question is that?”

Rarity half-closed her eyes. “Mares tend to have more rounded faces, softer muzzles, and slightly wider and rounder flanks, while stallions have sharper faces and are broader at the withers. It’s currently in fashion for stallions to have cropped tails, although these creatures apparently don’t have tails at all. Plus—“ she flipped the page back and pointed with her hoof. “Well, imagine if Big McIntosh were to stand on his hind hooves—what do you suppose this would be?”

Rarity didn’t notice Twilight’s reddening face, since she was poring over the drawing. Mistaking the silence for uncertainty, Rarity spoke again. “Oh, really, Twilight, I know you stay in and read a lot, but with all the time we spend at Sweet Apple Acres, surely you’ve seen him unshea—“

“Don’t say it!” Twilight looked up at her, cheeks burning. “Not—Big Mac—I just—not—just don’t.”

Rarity opened her mouth, but no words came out. On one hoof, she wanted to taunt Twilight like a schoolfilly. A few lines of Twilight and Big Mac laying by a tree would do it. On the other hoof, it was hardly something a lady would do, and Twilight was a close friend, which meant she probably shouldn’t even gossip. Maybe to Fluttershy at the spa would be all right, but nopony else.

She sighed, closed her mouth, and began thoughtfully examining the drawings of the skeletal system. “Not too different from our own,” she muttered. She stood on her hind hooves—she was one of the few unicorns in Ponyville who could make the maneuver look graceful—and experimentally moved her forelegs around. Satisfied, she happily flipped through the book until she returned to the section on clothing.

“Hmm, this looks like a peplos. Similar to ancient pegasus wear. It fastens here, with—um, if I remember right, it was called a tibula. Or was it a fibula? It’s named after a leg-bone. See how the forelimbs can pass through the wrap? It often draped all the way to the hind fetlocks, since upper-class pegasi did so little walking in those days.”

Twilight looked at her suspiciously. “Why is it you were unable to identify a single article of clothing five minutes ago, and you can now suddenly say with confidence what each article of clothing is called, and how it’s used?”

“My dear Twilight Sparkle.” Rarity looked at her critically. “Do you even understand what clothing is for?”

“Yes?”

“Simply, clothing is used to protect one from the elements, to accentuate beauty and conceal ugliness, to express the personality of the wearer, and as a status symbol. All clothing—at some level—performs these five functions.

“To be practical, clothing must be comfortable, and must not inhibit free movement. If you were cold, you could simply drape a quilt across yourself—and it would be an effective way to keep warm—but it would cause you to be unable to move with any grace whatsoever. Only the wealthiest and poorest of ponies wear clothing that does not fit them correctly.” Seeing the confused look on Twilight’s face, she elaborated. “Poor ponies have to wear hand-me-downs, you know that. Many of the wealthy ponies in Canterlot dress in designer clothing which was never meant for them, simply to impress.” Rarity shuddered. “Why, I remember seeing a mare at the Gala who was wearing a dress saddle that chafed her wings—one could see she was losing feathers.” She tapped the illustration of the peplos. “Now that I have seen the creature’s form, I can accurately describe this garment. I know the its proportions, so I know how long the garment is, and what it is.”

Whistling happily, she began to take notes, occasionally looking up to comment. She took a brief break to feed Sweetie Belle and send her out the door.

“I cannot properly name all these garments,” she finally declared, setting her quill down. “I doubt I have identified more than half—and I am likely wrong about many of those.

“I have, however, come to some determinations on the purpose of some of its clothing. Some of the clothes are obviously meant for mares, while others are meant for stallions. I can see a difference in the way they are cut.” She began motioning at her body. “They frequently separate top and bottom halves of their garb, around here. Much of their clothing appears to be designed to cover the bottom half of their bodies completely, nearly all the way to the ground.

“Their clothing also seems to generally cover to the withers, and some portion of the forelegs—most, all the way to their talons, it appears. Some of it is clearly meant to be worn in layers. They apparently pay great attention to the collar—there are three pages of sketches of different types of collar.

“They cover their hind paws with single-piece fabric coverings which range from fetlock-length to rising as high as the flanks. They are much like our socks. On the other hoof, almost all of their talon-covers leave the toes free to move. I can conclude that they primarily use their forelimbs, and hardly ever use their paws to grasp things. Much like Spike, really.

“Finally, it appears that their—presumable—mares often emphasize the curves at their flank and their brisket. Much of their clothing seems to be specifically cut to emphasize—even exaggerate—those areas.” She pushed her pile of notes towards Twilight.

“Here, take these with you. Most of this clothing looks decorative, without being overly ornate. To me, it suggests that these creatures prefer to wear clothing most of the time—perhaps all the time. If the drawings are an accurate representation, they have dozens of different materials that they normally use for their clothing. They appear to prefer brightly colored clothes, which tells me that they use them primarily to enhance their appearance, rather than for protection.”

---

Dale woke up after only four hours of sleep. He was still surprisingly alert and felt better than he had for years, except for his bruised shoulder. For a second, he forgot how it had happened, but then he remembered Lyra hitting him with a hoof.

He started to get dressed while cursing the confinement of tents. Suddenly, he remembered that he was alone on the island, and had no real reason to be overly modest. He stepped out of the tent in nothing but his underwear and proceeded to dress in comfort.

He hadn’t bothered with a fire the day before, and he didn’t feel like building one this morning, either. Instead, he switched the propane cylinder from his lamp to a single-burner stove and started warming water for his morning coffee.

Glancing overhead for a passing spaceship had now become a routine. However, the starry sky was devoid of mysterious objects. For a moment, he wished he still had the astronomy book—he could have tried to identify some of the more obscure constellations. If wishes were horses, beggars—did these creatures have riders? If you led them to water, would they drink? He snickered, thinking of her drinking out of the lake. He could hardly claim to have led her there, though.

---

Lyra was completely unsurprised to see Twilight waiting patiently in the library. The books—save the thick anatomy book—were neatly stacked on the table, and Lyra’s notes were arranged on one side. On the other, a pile of notes in Luna’s writing sat next to another sheaf written in a neat cursive. Twilight was scribbling on her own scroll.

“Morning,” Lyra chirped, “how long have you been up?”

“Since Luna force-fed me carrots,” she muttered, not pausing in her writing. “Already went to see Rarity, and had her work out what kind of clothing these creatures wear.” She waved a hoof at the notes in cursive. “I’m sort of consolidating the salient points right now, for a letter to the Princess. Luna said that we should have some help, and suggested a few ponies. I need you to go and get Dr. Goodall.”

“The vet?”

“Yeah.” She looked up from her writing. “No, on second thought, I’ll send Spike after he gets up. I think she liked him.”

“Is that all?”

“Nope. She also said that Pinkie Pie could help, and recruited a couple of ponies from Canterlot.” She frowned. “Bucky Fuller and—“

“Bucky Fuller? Isn’t he, like, the most sought-after architect in all of Canterlot? Maybe Equestria?”

Twilight shrugged. “I guess—that’s what she said. I’ve never had anypony build anything for me.” Twilight finished her scroll, blotted it, rolled it, sealed it, and floated it over to a basket, then looked back towards Lyra. “How much of this book did you go through?”

“Just where he named parts of his anatomy,” she said. “I wanted to go through more, but the day was getting late. He wants me to bring it back.”

“If we were to go through it right now, how much do you think you’d be able to recognize?”

Lyra frowned. “Probably nothing significant. If it’s something common, sure, I could name it. But I haven’t seen anything on his world other than the beach, yet.”

“Ok, we’ll let the ‘experts’ handle this book.” She pushed it aside and pulled up the calendar. “What about this?”

“It’s a calendar.” Lyra opened it to the first page. “It faces like this. See, here, on the bottom half of the page are days.”

Twilight flipped through it, studying the pages. “What are these pictures of?”

“Some kind of wagon, I think.” Lyra pointed. “Here’s the bed, and here’s a cab, where the teamster can sit. This front thing looks like a closed-in compartment. I can’t tell where a harness would go, though.”

“Strange thing to put on a calendar. It looks more like an art book to me,” Twilight muttered, continuing to turn pages. When she got midway through, she looked up in shock, left eyelid twitching. “It drew in it? Who does that?”

“I guess he wanted to make sure I knew what day we came last time. Don’t you write on your calender?”

“First, it’s a planner, not a calender. It’s meant to be written in. Secondly, if it were this carefully crafted, I wouldn’t write in it at all. I would hang this calender on the wall from this little hole, and look at it.” Twilight let out a shaking breath. “Perhaps they—or that creature—have no respect for books. It. Is. Not. Allowed. In. My. Library.” She shook her head. “How come it starts off on the first day of the first month, but then it gets irregular? This month has thirty-one days, then twenty-nine, then thirty-one again, then thirty . . . divided into seven-day sections . . . can’t these creatures even keep track of weeks and months properly? They’re not smart enough to figure out how to count to twelve, they have irregular months. If it weren’t for the quality of their printing, I’d think they lived in caves or something.”

“You’re being unfair.” Lyra looked critically at Twilight. “I didn’t even think of it until this morning, when Bon Bon had me get some vanilla.”

“Think of what?”

“You’re assuming that he’s not clever enough to increment at twelve, yet his words for the numbers do increment at twelve. How many different numbering systems do we use?”

“Only one, which goes from one to twelve.”

“Are you sure?” Lyra pointed a hoof at Twilight. “Because I got more vanilla for Bon Bon this morning from Sugarcube Corner. I’d never thought of it before, but she measures it out in drams, and it comes in fifths and half-fifths. She also measures out in cups and quarts—which, when you think about it, is eighths. So—she measures liquids in eighths and tenths, uses a different measurement system for dry ingredients, and if I bought her a necklace, it would be measured in grains. Suppose this creature also has a bunch of different numbering systems?

“I don’t do much cooking,” Twilight muttered. “But you’re right. I think those systems are Pegos in origin. Dry weights are Equuis, and grains is a unicorn adaptation of the Draconic system. I seem to remember the Griffons used a different system—Rainbow Dash would know—a lot of the weather notation comes from Griffon. I think they use ropes or cables or something for distance. But those are just units; they still use the same base.”

“What about thaums?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Fine. The unicorn system of measuring magical energy is a base four logarithmic scale. But that shouldn’t count: it’s preunification. Luna said ponies hadn’t even invented base twelve yet.”

“But remember when we were deciding what language to teach him, if he didn’t know any in the books?” Lyra countered. “We chose Earth Pony, because it was the most commonly used, and because it was the simplest. Perhaps he uses different base systems for different purposes.

“Or—what’s important to us may not be to them.” Lyra scratched her head. “What if—when I noticed the night sky, it wasn’t done very well. Stars shifted about; there were flashing lights that moved. Perhaps we’re taking our civilization for granted.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well—you remember the stories of Hearth’s Warming Eve, and what preunification Equestria was like. We—everypony knows that the unicorns used to raise the sun, before Celestia graciously took the responsibility. But, how hard was it to control? Was it a few strong unicorns, or hundreds? Thousands? All of them? How good at it were they?

“What if these creatures don’t have a princess to take care of their sun and moon, but they have to do it themselves? Maybe it takes so much energy that they can’t keep it properly in order. Maybe this is the best they can do.”

Twilight began frantically scribbling on a piece of paper, occasionally consulting the calendar. After a minute, she looked up. “With three hundred sixty-six days, the only even lunar cycle they could have that makes any sense at all is sixty-one days.” She frowned. “It almost works—the months tend to be paired in thirty-one and thirty day groups. But the second month should have one more day, and the seventh should have one fewer. If that were the case, it would work. Although the pattern would go from long/short to short/long at the halfway point.”

“What if they took a day away from the second month because they didn’t like it?”

Twilight gave her a withering look. “The second month of spring? What’s not to like about it?”

“Ok, it’s not likely.”

“If it were two days shorter, it would match up with our lunar cycles perfectly. Then, they could have thirteen months with twenty-eight days each, like we do. It’s perfectly logical, and it would only take two days change. How difficult could that be for them to manage?”

Lyra threw up her hooves. “I don’t know, Twilight, I just don’t know. I know it’s frustrating and stupid, but maybe there’s a good reason why they have their calendar arranged in such an illogical manner. Maybe he keeps a different calendar than the others. I can’t say. When we have more successfully bridged the language gap, then I might ask him. What does it matter, anyway? They can keep track of days in whatever manner they wish.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Twilight motioned at the books. “It’s so frustrating, to have all this information, yet to be entirely unable to understand most of it.”

---

Luna carefully nudged her tiara until it sat in its proper spot on her dresser. Her ornamental hoof-covers were already neatly arranged, and her peytral hung on a padded hook. She knew that somepony would be in to polish them—not that they needed to be polished—shortly after she fell asleep.

She joyfully leapt into her bed, belly-flopping in the center of the cloud. As much as she disliked all the supposed modern conveniences that had been placed in the castle, she had no complaints whatsoever about her bed. The cloud was the perfect thickness, kept perpetually warm. The sheets were silky-smooth, and the vast quantity of pillows could be arranged in any manner she desired. The thick velvet drapes kept light and sound out.

She didn’t really need to sleep. She could sustain herself simply with excess magical energy nearly indefinitely. However, she had found that it helped her memory to sleep, and it was something that ponies did. Her research had indicated that sleep also correlated to growth as well—both physical and magical.

She yawned, stretching her wings out. As her left wing brushed against the sheet, she gave a brief yelp. There was an annoyingly loose secondary feather which she’d completely forgotten about.

Luna tilted her head back, until she could spot the offending feather. She carefully grabbed it with her mouth, gently working it back and forth until it pulled lose. It was something that could be done with magic, but it somehow wasn’t as satisfying.

She twisted it back and forth in her magical field, studying it closely. It wasn’t something most pegasi bothered with, but she was always curious when she had a damaged feather.

Close examination revealed no obvious defects. The vane was damaged, no doubt from use. It probably was just the feather’s time to go—they didn’t last forever.

She set it on her dresser. The calamus was undamaged, so it would make a useful quill after she trimmed the end. There was no sense in letting it go to waste. She could even give it to Twilight. Old mare’s tales said that alicorn feathers gave magical properties to writing. That was just what they needed, some sort of magical understanding of the books that Lyra had gotten from the creature.

Luna rubbed her head. Of all the books, the only one which had made any sense whatsoever was the book of the night sky. The creature obviously had a great appreciation for it. While all the constellations were different—which was to be expected—there were a vast number of star charts. It was quite obvious that his planet moved much more than Equestria—the quantity of charts revealed that.

More importantly, the book was obviously very valuable. Every single page had photographs on it, and even the paper was as white as freshly-fallen snow. It had probably taken a craftspony months to make—yet he freely gave it to Lyra.

She smiled as she pulled the hanging drapes closed. Any creature which has that much love for its night sky is my friend. She could hardly wait to go through the book with Twilight. The unicorn’s well-intentioned professors had doubtless taught her all they knew about the night sky, but they only knew it from books and a few telescope observations. They’d never felt the gentle pull of the moon, or performed the complicated spells to tug asteroids into orbit. She could teach Twilight so much. . . .

---

“He seemed to hold this book in high regard,” Lyra said. “He certainly expected recognition from me.”

“Luna and I looked through it. She wanted me to study the stellar charts,” Twilight said proudly.

“He showed me those, too. But that’s not what he showed me first.” She flipped past the opening, finally pointing to a picture. “The first thing he pointed to was this.”

Twilight squinted at the image, studying it closely. “It looks like a patchy orange ball,” she finally said. “It’s cut away and has different layers. Obviously, it’s a cross-sectional drawing which matches the photographs on these pages. I just don’t know what it is supposed to represent.”

She flipped a couple of pages. “Those are telescopes. It looks like—these creatures have talons like Spike, so it looks like it is putting a cover, or maybe a filter on the telescope, although I can’t imagine why it would. Distant objects are hard enough to see, and a filter would just cut the light that came through the eyepiece.” She kept turning pages. “Well, that’s the moon; there’s no mystery there. Those look like craters and such on the moon. They seem to have named them. Odd. And—wait.”

Twilight looked carefully at one of the pictures, before looking excitedly up at Lyra. “They’ve visited their moon! They’ve been on it! They must have a spell like the one we’re using.” She looked wistfully out the window. “I’ll have to ask the Princess if I can visit our moon. I don’t think anypony ever has.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve never read any account of any of the great unicorns having done so,” Twilight said. “I’m surprised Clopurnicus didn’t try it. He and Starswirl the Bearded were contemporaries, and—well, clearly Starswirl’s spell allows travel to distant planets. The moon should have been comparatively easy.”

“No, I mean how do you know that they have?”

Twilight began pointing to photographs. “These are not significantly different than what I can see through a telescope.” She paused. “Ok. Remember when you were at the Cloudaseum. When you looked over the edge, you saw Equestria below you, and you saw everything from above—the tops of trees, the tops of lakes, and so on. If you looked out at an angle, you’d see some definition to things—you can see that a tree is taller than a rock, maybe, but it’s skewed, because you’re looking from above.

“Now, that’s what everything on the moon looks like through a telescope. Since it’s spherical, it provides some perspective for you, but you’re still looking from above. Well, technically below, but the analogy is still apt.” She tapped on a picture. “You can see that these are craters, and you can see the shadows and highlights show the high and low spots, but there really isn’t much definition. The distance alone causes some distortion.

“But this picture here—this is a side shot. It looks like a picture taken from the surface—like a picture of a rock on the beach, taken from the beach. You can see the surface and the sky.” She looked at it thoughtfully. “But the sky is dark. There should be stars visible. I don’t know why there aren’t.”

She turned a few more pages. “I can make nothing of this. At first, I thought they were all moons—one like our own, and seven more that are different. Why they would have eight moons is beyond me. Maybe that’s why their calendar is so confusing. But each one has a drawing of it circling the orange ball that started the chapter. There’s something more here. There’s another one with surface pictures—a reddish one. It looks like a desert”

“For all we know, it could be rules for a game they play,” Lyra muttered. “I suppose I’ll have to ask him, once we get over the language barrier.”

“It’s not rules for a game.” Twilight stamped her hoof down. “This whole book is concerned solely with objects in their night sky. I don’t understand all of them, but they’re there for a reason.

“The back of the book is star charts. That’s obvious. There are very many of them, which makes sense. Luna’s sky looks different from different places. She usually makes constellations to be viewed from Canterlot, but she’s done others for special occasions. I think she did a whole tableaux for Zebrican independence, although it couldn’t properly be viewed from here.”

“Why not? Don’t the stars look the same wherever you are?”

“Of course not! Most of the stars are really far away. Dozens of millions of miles, or maybe more. We don’t really know. Clopernicus thought that all the stars were like our sun, but a long ways away. Apparently, he convinced Princess Celestia to experiment, and she could tell they were the same. She couldn’t do anything with them—since they were so far—but she apparently flared one while he was observing it with his telescope. It took days before he saw a glimmer.

“Luna arranges asteroids, but they’re much closer. Like from here to Las Pegasus, but up in the sky. From the ground, they look the same, but they aren’t.”

“Why wouldn’t they look the same?”

“Because . . . wait, I think I figured it out.” Twilight flipped the book back a few pages. “Princess Celestia told me once that the sun wasn’t solid at all. It was burning liquid, I think she said. Like an oil lamp. So, this is a sun—they’re its sun. This picture shows the layers of it. And next is the moon, of course. Very logically arranged.

“So, the next pages are . . . other planets? They show a sun in the drawing. I’m not sure what the ellipse the planet is on is supposed to represent, though. It could be some kind of coordinate system, or represent magical fields or leylines. I’ll want to be sure to discuss this with Luna, too.” She nestled a bookmark between the pages.

“The red planet is one they’ve visited, too. There are a bunch of pictures taken from its surface. They’ve been close to some of the other ones, too.” She kept turning pages. “I don’t see any other surface photographs, but they’ve been close to them, unless they have really powerful telescopes.” She looked at Lyra, eyes sparkling. “The only planet I’ve ever seen—besides our own, of course—appears as little more than a black dot, and can only clearly be seen when its sun is behind it. With the most powerful telescope I have, it’s smaller than a flea. Of course, there are much more powerful telescopes in Canterlot, but they won’t let just anypony use them. I’ve seen a few drawings of other planets. Even then, they are hardly larger than—than one of your marbles. Unless they’re very tiny, they are far, far away.”

“What about the asteroids? I’m still confused about that.”

“They’re just little rocks that fly around,” Twilight explained. “Sometimes, they fall to earth, but they’re called meteors then. Didn’t you watch the shower a couple of years ago? I remember I saw Bon Bon there. Before Luna started collecting them, some of the bigger ones crashed into the ground and caused all sorts of problems. In fact, there’s an old mare’s tale that says that the eternal winter wasn’t caused by Windigos, but a big meteor that crashed out in the desert.”

“Um, ok.” Lyra scratched her head. “I meant—well, you said something about Luna’s stars not looking the same from different places on the ground? I don’t understand that.”

“Oh! It’s because of changing perspective.”

Lyra looked at her blankly.

“You’ve been by Sweet Apple Acres. All the trees are planted in neat rows. But, when you’re walking up the road, they only line up when you’re parallel to the rows. As you move, they seem to form diagonal lines, then no pattern, than straight lines again. Just like Luna’s stars.”

“She puts them in straight lines?”

“No, she . . . are your marbles still in your saddlebags? I can show you.”

---

Dale sat on his cooler, poring over the book Lyra had given him. He had already made several attempts at pronouncing the words, and tried to remember their meaning. He had finally written them in Sharpie on one side of a notebook page, with the translations on the back. It was difficult going—he had to keep reminding himself to be precise. Clearly, the accents made all the difference between many of the words.

What had been even more frustrating was that the words looked short, but they were pronounced as if they were longer. He couldn’t figure out why that would be. It was like they had hidden letters in them.

He had finally called it quits for a while, and was trying to determine what other details he could make out in the pictures. Only the largest objects were named, of course, but that didn’t mean that the smaller objects were of no interest.

The kitchen was a good example. There were clearly cupboards, with plates and bowls in them. The sink faced a window, and there were a couple of frying pans hanging above a stove. All these things were labeled.

But it was other details Dale was interested in. The doors all seemed to have a diagonal division, with a raised X. They looked to be Dutch doors, and they had knobs. It was obvious that the creatures could manipulate things with their energy fields, but was it really so commonplace that they used doorknobs? Why even bother? Why not just have swinging doors with a push-plate?

The stove appeared to have a bellows attached, which implied it was a wood or a coal stove. Either it was a particularly inefficient design, or they needed their stoves to be capable of melting metals.

In fact, after looking through the entire book, he had come to the nearly inescapable conclusion that they had failed to invent electricity. But that was ridiculous. They had RF-emitting nanotechnology, they had the capability to move things with some kind of mentally-activated tractor beam, and they’d gotten here—how could they not have invented electricity?

His ruminations were interrupted by the sound of a distant airplane engine. He listened carefully until it had passed, clearly headed for the mainland. He wrote, in big block letters, Find a way to get them to move or hide their landing site. Then he went back to the problem at hand.

Ok, he thought. Back to square one. He couldn’t assume that just because outlets and extension cords weren’t drawn meant they didn’t exist. From all appearances, this appeared to be a book geared towards children, not a how-it-works guide. In fact, now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure that electrical cords were shown in his much-larger visual dictionary, either.

Furthermore, Tesla had been working on some device which he claimed could beam electricity free to the masses, and while Tesla’s idea didn’t pan out, there were chargers that worked by just putting an object on a receiver, with no connecting cords—even his toothbrush worked that way. Dale was also pretty sure he’d read an article about the military attempting to recharge drones in flight with lasers or something.

Maybe those weren’t doorknobs as he knew them, either. Maybe they were receivers which responded to verbal commands, or something. It seemed like everything on earth was getting linked with smartphones. Maybe they’d taken it one step further.

He sighed. There wasn’t really going to be much he could learn from these drawings. Once again, he wished that they would have included drawings or pictures or something of really futuristic technology. He probably would have had no better luck understanding it, but it would have been interesting to study.

---

“None of these stars match,” Twilight muttered in frustration. “At least, none of the constellations do. There’s three stars here, in a line, like Orion’s belt. But they’re in the wrong quadrant, and none of the stars around it are the same.”

“This planet is a long ways off, though, isn’t it?”

“As far as I know.” Twilight rubbed her face. “I—you know, the Princess never told me. That would change the perspective.” She looked at the star charts. “If we knew where it was—maybe I could make adjustments.” She brightened. “And, if I can match stars from its sky and our own, I bet I could figure out how far some of them are, using trigonometry. I’m glad Luna’s letting me go though this book—I bet I can answer some questions nopony’s been able to before.”

“Send a letter with Spike,” Lyra suggested.

Twilight looked over at the outgoing mail basket—it already contained a half-dozen scrolls. “Oh, he’ll hate me—especially if she writes a response to each one separately.” Suddenly, her ears perked up. “Do I hear a train whistle?”

“I think it’s about time.” Lyra looked around for a clock. “It’s—“

“Gotta go! Ponies to meet!” Twilight ran out the door, stopped, and came right back in. “Could you wake up Spike? Have him put on some coffee? And tea? And then have him talk to Dr. Goodall? Or you could do that. Thanks!”

Lyra blinked. Where did Spike even sleep? She looked around the library. There weren’t a whole lot of rooms. In desperation, she finally fixed her eyes on Twilight’s owl, who was sitting on his perch, staring at her unblinkingly. She couldn’t remember the owl’s name, but surely it knew when it was being addressed.

“Do you know where Spike is?”

“Who.”

“Spike. Dragon? Little guy, about this tall?”

“Who.”

“Spike.” She sighed. “If you—you know, never mind. I was going to have you find him, but you clearly don’t even know who he is.” She turned and pushed open a door, not noticing as the owl flew off its perch.

A cursory examination of the kitchen revealed no dragons, and she went back into the main room, finding—quite to her surprise—Spike standing there, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, while a smug owl looked triumphantly down at her.

“Hey, Lyra. What’s all this stuff?” Spike picked the visual dictionary off the table with some effort. She’d never really noticed before the clever way he used his hands to accomplish the task, but it was very much like Dale.

“Twilight and I are studying a strange creature,” she said, wondering if she should even have admitted to that much. “She went to get a couple of guests from the train station. She wanted you to go get Dr. Goodall, when you have a chance.”

“Guests?” Spike looked around frantically. “But—the library isn’t clean at all. And I should make drinks! For the guests!” He ran into the kitchen.

“It’s so good to see you again,” Octavia remarked, kissing Twilight on the cheek. Despite her doubtlessly early departure from Canterlot, she was perfectly composed, her mane and tail neatly groomed, and her fur brushed to a shine. Her pink bowtie was perfectly straight. Unusually, rather than carrying her cello, she had a simple pair of designer saddlebags draped across her back.

“I’m waiting for Bucky Fuller,” Twilight replied. “He’s supposed to be on the train, too.”

“He actually sat across from me. He brought—rather more supplies than seems necessary.”

A moment later, the conductor emerged, carrying a heavy suitcase in his mouth. He set it reverently on the platform in front of the mares, then stood aside as a pegasus wearing a strange tubular backpack arrangement struggled out of the train.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Decided since I was coming to Ponyville I ought to get these blueprints to the town hall. Bucky Fuller.” He held out a hoof, which Twilight shook.

“Twilight Sparkle. I assume you know Ms. Van Clef?”

“I designed her house,” he said simply, reaching for his suitcase.

“Please—let me.” Twilight lifted it with her horn. “We can stop by the mayor’s on the way to the library. You’ll be more comfortable without those drawings.”

“Quite true.” He looked around him. “The town hasn’t changed much since I designed Mr. Rich’s house.”

“They were going to build some apartments over there.” Twilight pointed with her hoof. “But they fell down during construction, and nopony wanted to try again.”

Bucky Fuller shook his head. “No doubt somepony thought she knew how to design a building, but failed to take structural engineering into account. How tall was it to be?”

“Five stories.” Twilight and Bucky Fuller kept discussing the apartment building while they walked; Octavia brought up the rear.

When they finally arrived at the library, Twilight followed her guests in. Spike brought out tea for the four ponies. As they drank, Twilight divided up the labor. She and Bucky Fuller would go through the visual dictionary, paying specific attention to anything involving architecture, while the two musicians would go over the language. The architect had been planning to leave again on the afternoon train, while Octavia was going to stay for the duration.

Lyra and Octavia occupied one corner of the main room of the library, the unicorn’s notes scattered across a table that Twilight had moved over. She also had a chalkboard set up on an easel, borrowed from Cherilee.

“This is his alphabet,” Lyra explained, showing Octavia the first page of notes. “At first, I thought that it distinguished the big letters and the small letters to represent strong and weak sounds, but it apparently does not.”

“What are they for?”

“I don’t know.” Lyra looked at her thoughtfully. “Of all his writing I’ve seen—and you will see, too—there is no discernable pattern. He writes the names of its months in all strong letters, as well as the names of its wagons. In his books, they seem to be used indiscriminately, although strong letters are either used at the beginning of a word, or throughout the entire word, so they are clearly for some sort of emphasis.”

“This was quite clever of you.” Octavia tapped the page. “I presume you figured it out as you were taking notes?”

“The first few strong letters are pronounced the same as their weak counterparts, but it hadn’t occurred to me to use musical notation right away.”

“Hmm.” Octavia scanned the page, moving her mouth as she read, forming the sounds silently. “Is that it, then?”

“Well, no.” Lyra looked at her fellow musician. “The first difficulty is that I had to transpose. His range is almost exactly two octaves below my own—yours, too, I suppose. In fact, I used a voice spell to communicate with him. The second difficulty is that the letters of his alphabet all have names which have nothing whatsoever to do with their pronounciation.”

Octavia looked at her wide-eyed. “Well, then, how are we to make any sense of its language at all?”

“There must be rules.” Lyra tapped her hoof down on her notes. “I just got back last night from our first meeting. I haven’t had any time to go over my notes, but we covered a lot.

“Now, you and I both know that at first glance, musical notation reveals nothing. If we didn’t know what ledger lines represent, or the clef markings, or flats and sharps, we certainly couldn’t attempt to sing or perform anything from sheet music. But we do know. Let’s look at his language that way. Each letter, or group of letters, has a specific meaning to it, and should be pronounced a specific way. We can start breaking the language down, and then see where we get.”

Octavia nodded. “The letters together act as chords. Each one preceding and following reveals what type of chord it is.” She reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a small strap with a hook on it.

“What’s that?” Lyra looked at her curiously.

“It is called a dexterity enhancer.” Octavia slid it onto her left foreleg, then affixed a quill to the hook. “For composition—all the fiddly bits in sheet music are hard to get correct with mouth-writing. I have discovered that it is also useful for taking notes.”

“I could have used one of those with Dale. I was trying to save my magic.”

“I could give you this one,” Octavia offered. “Although it does take some practice to write legibly by hoof.”

“I don’t really have time to practice, unfortunately. Maybe later. I wonder if they sell them at Quills and Sofas?”

“Really, I would be honored to give you this one,” Octavia muttered. She dipped her quill in the inkpot. “I am ready where you are.”

“I want you to read cold from my notes. We’ll see how good they are.”

“Hmm.” Octavia cleared her throat. “Well, I suppose I shall start with its alphabet.”

“Although I am honored to perform a service for Princess Luna, I fail to see how I can be of any assistance,” Bucky Fuller announced, looking at a page of drawings of homes. “I can offer nothing from these drawings.”

“Why not?”

“Each of these is, no doubt, culturally significant, and so named. Perhaps after its region, or its designer, or the culture which built it.” He tapped the first drawing. “That appears to be a hemispherical home, made of some sort of cut block. It could be cloud, it could be ice, it could be glass, it could even be soap. The designer of such a building is aware of the strength and simplicity of the shape, but perhaps nothing else. It may have been made because only the material from which it is constructed was available, or it may be a temporary shelter. If that arched opening is the door, it may be only slightly taller than the occupants, or it could be an oversized entrance, like the ones at the palace.”

“What would you call it, if you had to guess at a name?”

“A domehouse.” He tapped the next two drawings. “These seem smilar, although the drawing suggests they are made out of cloths. The walls on this may be woven. This one here, at the bottom, has its floor supported off the ground, although it is lacking any means of getting up to the house. Either the creatures fly in, or they have to jump. It may be constructed in water; if so, it is constructed so that rising and falling tides do not get it wet. Or even changes in river level, if it is built in a river.”

Twilight turned the page, revealing several white columns with their parts labeled.

“Now, this is similar to classic Pegos architecture. There’s a lot more detail, since this material clearly holds its shape better than clouds. I can name these pieces. And, in fact, you can clearly see that all three of these columns are related to each other.” He began pointing at details. “Here, the volute and abacus are separate, while in the second, they’ve been combined into one part, while the third brings back a complex volute. On the other hoof, the dentil becomes lengthened in the second design, while it’s shortened in the final.”

Twilight quickly discerned that he was either unable or unwilling to attempt to identify entire buildings, although he had no difficulty naming construction details, frequently giving her a long explanation of the reason for their design. He lectured her at great length on arches, after naming each type. He was much less helpful in his description of parquet designs, simply stating that they were typically named after the region that popularized them.

He finally left around two, making his own way back to the train station.

“Well, that was less helpful than I’d hoped,” Twilight muttered. She went over to see how Lyra and Octavia were doing, while Spike ran off to fetch Dr. Goodall.

The veterinarian was everything that the architect hadn’t been. She breezed through the drawings, identifying anatomy with ease. Twilight hadn’t spent much time with animals at all, and knew little more than gross anatomy, but Dr. Goodall was naming parts that weren’t even labeled in the drawing. Finally, she got to a two-page drawing which caused both ponies to look at each other in shock.

“Lyra? Come look at this, please.”

Puzzled by the slight quaver in Twilight’s voice, the unicorn came over, trailed by a curious Octavia.

“It looks like—it looks like our ancestors,” Lyra whispered. “I can’t even imagine. . . .”

“The creatures before were remarkably similar to Equestrian species,” Dr. Goodall said. “This equine is obviously an earth pony—well, very similar, anyways. The long muzzle and barrel is similar to Middle Eastern ponies—like the Saddle Arabians. The only other major difference I see is the feet angle forward at the proximal sesamoid, where ours go straight downwards.” She turned to the next page, confirming her judgment with a skeleton drawing. “Clearly, these creatures know of our species.”

“Maybe that’s why he approached,” Lyra offered. “He was scared, but maybe he saw the resemblance. Maybe he knew that ponies existed, and his hesitation was solely due to our unexpected appearance on the beach.”

“I wonder if our ancestors went there, too?” Dr. Goodall looked at the drawing. “This stallion is quite plain, like a wild animal. They have to be, to avoid predators, you know.”

“I guess I have another thing to ask Dale when I return,” Lyra commented. “Make sure you mark the page. I want to discuss this with him tomorrow. Maybe I can have him bring a pony next time—I wonder why he hasn’t thought of it yet?”

---

Celestia nibbled at her dinner without really tasting it. She’d gotten Twilight’s scrolls just before another budget meeting had started, and only now had a chance to go over them.

Aside from the volume of correspondence, they were as clear and concise as Twilight’s friendship reports. Each was carefully organized into observations and conclusions, and Twilight had taken pains to mention that the conclusions were only preliminary. The only note which required a response involved the location of the distant planet.

Pen hovering over the note, Celestia realized that she didn’t know the answer. She would have to ask Luna before she went to bed. Surely the star that orbited that planet had a name. Luna had named every single star when she was a filly—and she’d remembered all the names. Well, when Luna got up, she’d have her identify the star. Then she’d send a reply to Twilight.

---

“Pinkie, this is very important. I need you to Pinkie-promise that you won’t tell anypony.”

“Okie-Dokie.” The hyperactive pony stopped bouncing for a minute. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” Satisfied, she happily stotted over to the table, continuing to bounce slightly as Twilight came over at a more sedate pace.

“We’re trying to identify the names of kitchen implements in this book. Princess Luna said that you would be the pony best able to help us.”

“Sounds fun!”

“Erm, yes, I’m sure it will be fun.” Twilight opened the book to the page she’d marked. “Okay, go ahead slowly, when you’re ready.” She lifted a quill and poised it over a piece of paper.

“Hmmm.” Pinkie looked thoughtfully at the drawings of knives for a moment. “I know. That’s stabby, that’s choppy, that’s sawie, that’s peely—“

Twilight stopped writing and looked at her suspiciously. “Are those their real names, Pinkie? Is that what other ponies would call them? Or are those just your names for them?”

Pinkie’s mane deflated slightly, and she stopped bouncing. Her expression as she looked at the page was slightly sad. “Fine.” She took a deep breath. “That’s a filleting knife, a boning knife, cleaver, bread knife, don’t know, cook’s knife, don’t know, fork, sharpener, grapefruit knife, butter curler, peeler, paring knife, zester.” She barely paused between words, and Twilight scrambled to keep up. As soon as the quill had stopped moving, Pinkie took a deep breath, focused on the next page and began again.

“A funnel, a colander or sieve, a strainer, a salad spinner, a mortar and pestel, a nutcracker, garlic press, juicer, don’t know, grater, and pasta maker. You can also flatten marzipan or other dough in it—you don’t have to limit yourself to pasta. You can squish marzipan through a garlic press, too!” She licked her lips. “Ooh, I could make cupcakes topped with marzipan!” Pinkie began slowly bouncing in place.

“Focus, Pinkie.”

“Okie-Dokie! Ladle, potato masher, spatula, turner, draining spoon, skimmer, icing syringe, whisk, beater, muffin pan, cookie cutters, cake pan, pie pan, removable-bottom pan, cookie sheet, rolling pin.”

She began to run into trouble on the next page. “That’s also a mixer, but there’s no way to mix with it. There’s nothing to turn. Unless—“ she looked up at Twilight with the same face she used to declare that Zecora was an evil enchantress. “Unless it runs on magic.” She backed up slowly, then stood on her hind hooves. “It’s an evil mixer, it makes an evil elixir, and when it does, you’ll—um—you’ll be quite sick, sir, so watch out!”

Twilight face hoofed. “Pinkie, can you be serious?”

Pinkie Pie pronked right up to Twilight, stopping with her muzzle an inch from Twilight’s. Her icy blue eyes seemed devoid of any emotion whatsoever. She was still panting a little from her improvised dance routine, and each time she exhaled, Twilight could smell a whiff of mint. Finally, after what seemed like forever, she stepped back, and tilted her muzzle loftily in the air, as Rarity often did.

“Everypony knows that a mnemonic is an easy way to remember information, and what is a song but a musical mnemonic?” She poked Twilight lightly in the muzzle with her right forehoof, then began singing. “Pinkie Pie had a kitchen, e-i-e-i-o. With choppy here and a sawie there, e-i-e-i-o.”

Twilight sighed. She was could already tell she was going to have Pinkie’s new song stuck in her head. Forever.

---

Dale shut his notebook. The light was fading, and he’d probably reached the end of what he could learn in one day. This was more intense than being in school, and tomorrow there was going to be a test that really mattered.

This wasn’t how he’d learned Spanish. The words that he knew in Lyra’s language were random. He could piece together some of a sentence with them, but that was it. He hadn’t learned any tenses yet, if they even had them.

On the other hand, they’d started the prior day with no words at all, and now he knew—as long as he could remember them—over a hundred. It wasn’t a bad beginning, really.

Dale yawned. He probably should make his lunch now, but he just didn’t feel like it. Instead, he twisted the top off a Budweiser.

I wonder if they have beer. He took a drink, contemplating. If it’s even possible for them to get drunk, they’ve got it. Unless they’re way more civilized than humans, they’ve probably invented drugs we haven’t even thought of yet.

He looked in the cooler. There were only three beers missing from the case. He could share one with her tomorrow—if it was something she could drink.

` Why didn’t I think to give her some food yesterday? She could have taken it back and analyzed it. Then they’d know if it was okay to share food. Well, that was a problem which could be resolved. He’d just pack extra food.

---

The library seemed deathly silent without Pinkie Pie bouncing around and making a nuisance of herself. When Lyra and Octavia paused in their work, the only sound to be heard was the scratching of Twilight’s quill, as she penned yet another letter to the Princess.

“I don’t think I can do any more today,” Lyra muttered. “I still have to meet with him again tomorrow.”

“You should get rest,” Octavia suggested. “It is quite unseemly to be yawning during an important meeting.”

Lyra looked around at all the scattered papers. “I should pick these up.”

“No need. I shall make certain Twilight puts them all in your saddlebags before we go to bed. You can just pick them up first thing in the morning, before you leave. I should like to spend a little more time studying the materials. Perhaps I could make some guesses at how some of the words which he has not used are to be pronounced.”

“Thank you—for everything. I’ll be by first thing in the morning.”

“Take care.”

After Lyra had left, Octavia moved next to Twilight, looking at the scattered notes covering the table.

“May I be of some assistance?”

“Oh, I’m just collating my notes. Things I didn’t have time to do before.” She opened the visual dictionary. “I have a few more notes to write about their architecture.”

“Would you like something to eat? I could go to the Oatfield Cafe and pick up something.”

“Don’t get sandwiches,” Twilight muttered. “I’ve got some bits in my desk.”

“I would be honored to pay.” Octavia looked at the open page. “Why are you looking at pictures of igloos and huts? Is that the creature’s home?”

“You know what these are?”

Octavia looked at her in surprise. “Some of them, yes. The igloo, tepee, yurt, and pile home I recognize.”

“Really.” Twilight’s eyes gleamed. “Do go on.” She flipped the page.

“I would call that a manor house,” Octavia ventured.

“I wonder why Bucky wouldn’t identify them?”

“Twilight, only academics like ourselves freely offer our wisdom and knowledge. Have you ever tried to get a legal opinion from a barrister? Unless you are paying her, or she is a close personal friend, she will tell you nothing, and I have found this to be true of most professionals.” She sighed. “Princess Luna should have asked a professor.”

“She’s coming back tonight. We can ask her then why she didn’t.”

Author's Note:

As always, check out my blog for thank-yous, and a list of references, and other random ramblings!
Click right here!

Comments

[Pilgrims Progress]

Yeesh Twi, stop jumping to conclusions

Our Calendar is fine! Well, okay, it is a bit of a mess, but still. It's fine!

How long till they figure out that Dale isn't an imbecile? Honestly, it's the only thing is this story that I want to be over with.

[Admiral Biscuit]

2382037

Well, Lyra's pretty sure he's not. Twilight--not so much, but her views are likely to radically shift once she and Luna go through the astronomy book.

[shyguy7829]

I wonder what they'll say when they learn that Earth revolves around the Sun.

[Admiral Biscuit]

2382075

Not to mention, we don't control it. It just happens on its own. Twilight's going to be so confused.

[Trixie Treats]

Oh mannnn I love this fic. I love the amount of detail put into this, realistic as hell.

Eagerly awaiting the next chapter, gambare!

[Admiral Biscuit]

2382158

It'll be sooner than this one, I promise. There was a lot of debate about what the ponies knew, and what they could guess. Humanist and I sent a lot of e-mails back and forth. I owe him a lot of credit!

[ISS]

I can't wait ponies find ISS is built without magic.

[nobodyreallyimportant]

Another excellent update! Keep them coming!

[sopchoppy]

yay!

[shyguy7829]

2382083
They must have some sort of grasp of gravitational force. Right?

[Karna]

2382083

"But how does this 'gravity' work?! It just happens! For no reason! WHY DOES NOBODY KNOW?!"

"What do you think physicists have been trying to figure out for the last 300 years?"

[AlexShrub]

Ooooooh I cant wait till they break the language barrier; electricity is gonna be so fun!

[zanthimos]

This is an awesome chapter but what sticks in my head is the big leap (and risk) you took when putting in info about our understanding of the stars and solar system and mesh it against what the ponies know and understand. I can't remember what episode but I remember seeing in the background one of those things (forgot the name) that has all their planets and sun and moon. They have some understanding of how it may work, even if it's a little outdated by our standards. If I could remember what scene and from what episode i'd point it out.

I suck at astronomy but I'm really looking forward to how you plan to put all this astronomical stuff together and how the ponies will react when they finally figure out how our solar system works and how much they know about their own and how much of it the royal sisters REALLY control mwhahahaaa!!!

Anyways, thanks for the awesome upload!!!

[CV12Hornet]

Oh, I can't wait until the ponies find out about industrialization, about the fact that we can produce by the millions what to ponies are priceless, handmade luxuries. Not to mention that there are 7 BILLION of us.

[dashdlkashd]

Now I'm not the best at math, but why would it matter what base ponies used. What ever equivilant they have to 1/3 would still equal .33 indefinite, regardless. no?
**EDIT**
Finished reading the chapter... and, distant planets? Really? Really, really? I don't even know where to start with this one.

2382378
I'm not sure humans know 'why' any of the fundamental forces of the universe work the way they do. My guess is ponies also don't understand why magic works any better than we know why gravity does. Granted like us, they would know 'how' it works and how they could use it to their advantage... but not why.

[Humanist]

Gah, and I notice this just before I go sleep.

I'll try to remember to read and review sometime this weekend. Feel free to pester me if I don't.

[Celebratory Flamethrower]

I have no idea why, but I'm loving the casually racist Twilight.

[Firebirdbtops]

Stupid Ceasars. Your birth months are interfering with our alien communication attempts!

[master109]

i cant wait to see the ponies reactions when they find out there's 7 billion of us because the ponies probably only have a population of 1 or 2 million

[Raistlin]

2382037

I want an scene when Dale finally shows Twilight a modern computer or a Ipod. To see the little egghead´s pupils dilating, her jaw dropping and her little brain spinning... priceless.

[Admiral Biscuit]

2383271

There's a scene like that in Quantum Castaways (and in Project: Sunflower (and in Just Passing Through (except it's not Twilight in Just Passing Through (yet)))). If she got her hooves on a tablet, I wonder if she'd go crazy figuring out where it should be shelved in the library?

[Admiral Biscuit]

2382687

Well, if you have a dozen eggs, and only want a third of them, you'd have four. I think (emphasis on the word think) that there would be the same, even result with the fraction 1/3. Regardless, it makes more sense for actual counting, because you can get a third of a dozen, or a quarter of a dozen, or whatever. We effectively use base 12 for calendars (12 months) and clocks (12 hours), so we can have even thirds or quarters of hours or years.

[Admiral Biscuit]

2382580

I'll just say that the show sometimes contradicts itself, and leave it at that. There is, after all, an AU tag at the top.
Humanist and I discussed the most probable explanation for the bulk of the episodes, and what the ponies know; I also discussed with Woonsocket Wrench what the ponies don't know, based on when we discovered it, and what we used (like the distance to stars--they probably don't have radio telescopes). Are there some contradictions with episodes? Yes. More will be revealed in the next chapter, as well. Luna can't wait to get her hooves on the book, after all.

[Admiral Biscuit]

2382357

Some sort, yes. They must--Twilight knows an anti-gravity spell.

[Admiral Biscuit]

2382483

I can imagine how it would go.

Dale: And, we have electricity to power all our stuff.
Twilight: What's electricity?
D: Well, it's a force that makes things like motors work.
T: Where does it come from?
D; Power plants.
T: Can you bring some seeds?
D: No, I mean buildings that generate power.
T: Oh. How does it work.
D: Well, it . . . it flows like water.
T: So you keep it in pools until it's needed?
D: No, it's like lightning.
T: How do you catch it, then? It doesn't seem safe.
D: It . . . you know, it's magic. A different kind of magic.

[Admiral Biscuit]

2382378

Given the amount of Sci-Fi Dale has read, he'll probably go with the rubber sheet model (especially since it was the one used in Asimov's "The Billiard Ball" which he's already referenced), which will undoubtedly just lead to more confusion. Especially if Twilight has a different understanding of it, because of her gravity-reversal spell.

[Karna]

2383472

"Okay, you know how you scuff your feet on the a wooly carpet, and then your hair starts standing up, and by touching someone there's a little zap?"
"Yes..?"
"Well, we're doing that. But bigger."

[Raistlin]

2383440

The best one I have read is in "the Audience" of RealityCheck, where she ears Arthur explaining Spike about the Kindle with the capacity of store eight thousand books.

th06.deviantart.net/fs71/200H/f/2012/086/8/5/want_it_need_it_twilight_wallpaper_1024x768_by_grumbeerkopp-d4u15an.jpg

Yeah, just like that.

[Admiral Biscuit]

2383524

Can ponies generate a static shock in that manner? Would it make a difference if the wore shoes or if they didn't? I don't have a horse or a pony to try it with, sadly. I'll ask my friends, but I don't think any of them have indoor equines....

[Karna]

2383565

You can do it with your bare feet, if you feel like it. I've done so in the past.

A real life pony couldn't do it(their legs not being flexible enough prevents it), but I don't think Equestria's ponies have that issue.

[Admiral Biscuit]

2383578

I was thinking more of the difference between keratin (or metal shoes) and bare flesh. I would think that clothing on fur could do it, though. It might be something that Rarity would know about. I've got a worn-out green shirt (I don't know what it's made out of since the tag's long gone) that gives me a static shock whenever I take it off.

[Karna]

2383585

Hm.

If ponies don't quite understand static electricity, this could lead to the hilarious misunderstanding of Twilight thinking that human "spells" let them draw electricity out of the ground and air.

In other words, she thinks humans are like the player character from inFamous.

[Admiral Biscuit]

2383596

Lauren Faust said that 'electronic' devices run on unicorn magic (like the arcade game in Hearts and Hooves day, for example), so the only other evidence that the ponies have any concept of electricity at all is the hydroelectric dam (there's a powerhouse at the base with insulators on the roof), and that could have something to do with magical energy, somehow. Maybe the two (magic/electricity) are different aspects of the same thing, or a different way of it working on a different planet (although Equestria and Earth are in the same universe in my story, that's not really a satisfactory explanation). It's yet another thing to ponder, I guess. Eventually, I'll have to come up with an answer.
Maybe they know what electricity is, but haven't figured out a use for it (and there's certainly a long list of human innovations that have fallen into the same category, like early Arabian optical science).

[dashdlkashd]

2383456
But you'd still get fucked over on other numbers? Such as nine, seven, eleven. Not to mention, putting things into fourths is just a thing we humans do. We're used to doing things in fourths, aliens wouldn't necessarily be. Maybe I'm still over-thinking this? Though I am still pretty disappointed in the whole 'ponies visiting distant planets'.

[Admiral Biscuit]

2382580
I'll open the response with a quote from Admiral Tigerclaw's magnificent Arrow 18: Mission Logs. I assume he knows what he's talking about (he sounds smarter than me, anyway), so I adopted his model as a reasonable Equestrian model.

However, when the GSA turned the Trans Neptunian Long Range Telescope on the system for observation, they were shocked at what they found. According to the images produced the star was orbiting, not a black hole, but a planet. And we’re not talking a super-Jupiter either. According to spectral analysis, the planet was terrestrial, contained an atmosphere similar to Earth, and seemed to have a temperature in the same range.

If we assume that Celestia really moves the sun (and she does in Arrow 18, of course), their solar system essentially has to be a single planet. However--in "Owl's Well that Ends Well," Twilight specifically mentions planets, thus implying that they've seen others, or know of others. I also made that assumption early on (after all, Celestia suggested traveling to a different planet).

Twilight also knows what comets are made out of, which means some ponies are interested in astronomy, and they have made at least some fairly good observations of their 'solar system.'

I can't explain an orrery (if that's the model you're thinking of--the one with the sun in the center and the planets moving through their orbits on little arms). Realistically, if--as canon says--Celestia raises the sun, it's an inexplicable thing for the ponies to have, and can be chalked up as an animation error.

An armillary sphere, on the other hand, dates back to the ancient Greeks (that's the little ball thingy), and originally had the earth at its center. That is something that the ponies might use, and it wouldn't contradict the whole Celestia-moves-the-sun thing. (In fact, The Glass Blower by Cold in Gardz has one. It's a brilliant story.)

All that having been said, there are a few details about the universe that Twilight doesn't know or is entirely wrong about, and Luna is going to happily correct her in the next chapter. After that, well, everyone can feel free to throw pitchforks or torches at me.

[Admiral Biscuit]

2384432

For counting whole numbers, and for general day-to-day stuff, base 12 is probably the best small base (base six might work all right, too). It's something we humans use a lot, kind of (inches in feet, dozens, hours, months). I'm pretty sure we have the Babylonians to thank for that. As for other math, it would work--after all, computers are doing it all in binary. Is it the best system? No, probably not. Is Twilight assuming that it is? Yes.
Now, for my own personal experience: I'm an auto mechanic. Fasteners on modern cars are mostly metric, with a few standard fractional ones thrown in here and there (more on older cars). They also use NPT fittings, sometimes. If that wasn't enough, torque specifications are given in foot-pounds or Newton-meters, A/C specifications are listed in standard or metric, depending on the manufacturer, and the computer code is typically written in Hexidecimal (so I get to deal with codes in mode $03 like P013B-02). As a result of all this, I usually use metric at work, but when I'm building things at home, go back to fractional.
We've got a long history of measuring things, and the American system is a conglomeration of all the preceding systems. For an example, the English calender uses months named using the Roman system, but days named using the Norse system. I challenge you, or anyone else, to go around your house or apartment, and see how many different measuring systems you can find, and what their effective base numbers are--yes, they're all written in base ten, but what's the effective base?

[dashdlkashd]

2385458
Ten clearly works out fine for us, no?

[Admiral Biscuit]

2385643

In most cases, it does. Converting decimal to fractional and vice-versa, not as well (I use a digital micrometer at work, but most specs on parts are given in fractional). Especially since the part sizes tend to be expressed in eighths or sixteenths. It's kind of depressing to need to keep a conversion chart on hand just to order sway bar bushings. I think that the situation would be a little better in base 12, but I'm not a hundred percent certain. I'm not good enough at math.

[craton765]

I want to see the american military find magic.

[craton765]

Also, i have an interesting picture i got straight out of the show on the whole electrical thing.[url=]http://i1240.photobucket.com/albums/gg481/craton765/powerplant_zpsf73c4692.png
(IDK whats wrong here its worked before)

[Admiral Biscuit]

2386744

It's true, the building at the base of the dam looks like a powerhouse, with insulators and all that. There aren't any wires though (although the animators could have just not drawn them), and we've never seen a power pole in the show--at least not yet.

Rarity's sewing machine could be treadle operated, or it could work on magic. In Read it and Weep, the hospital guard had a flashlight (there might have been flashlights in It's about Time, too; I can't remember). However, any of the electrically-powered gadgets could also be powered by magic (which is Lauren Faust's explanation). Maybe the powerhouse actually converts hydropower into magical energy, which the unicorns can absorb, or maybe it stores lightning bolts for the pegasi. Or maybe it's something else entirely.

[craton765]

2386826
the only thing we can really infer from the show is they at least have something that can in some way, shape, or form mimic electricity. That's really all we can do. We can't say for certin what that energy is whether its magic or electricity. But we can at least say they can be used for many of the same things.

[Drynwhyl]

This fic is quickly becoming one of the most interesting ones around right now.

[Admiral Biscuit]

2394142

Is that because I'm getting better, or because Arrow 18 is on hiatus and Over the Edge and Through the Woods hasn't updated in forever?

[Drynwhyl]

2398348 Well the only thing I considered was this story's own merits. It's all very in-depth and I can't help but enjoy it. Especially with Twilight being a bit of a bigot and a regular old guy trying to puzzle things out.

[WorldWalker128]

2382075
They'll probably think that Discord screwed with it way-back-when. Who knows, maybe he did! He coudl have swapped out the intelligence of the Ponies that got dropped off there with the minds of apes, and there you go! A few generations later and they'd have no idea that they had ever been different.
-
So...much...text! And so much consideration from the opposing views due to their cultural upbringing...if I didn't know any better, I'd think that you were prepping our minds for you to say that your name is Dale and you've been chatting with a certain Equine alien race!

[Admiral Biscuit]

2385643

In further response to the base-12 discussion, I actually didn't do much research before writing this story, instead relying on my memory of it from another story I wrote long long ago. Worse, I didn't research the answer to your question, but now I have.
Fractions: In base 12, most of the common fractions have simple decimal equivalents: 1/3 is 0.4, 1/4 is 0.3, 1/6 is 0.2 , 1/8 is 0.16 and 1/9 is 0.14. 1/7 is still a repeating decimal (0.186A35186A35...) just as Twilight said.

Arguably, factors of 3 are more commonly encountered in real-life division problems than factors of 5 (or would be, were it not for the decimal system having influenced most cultures). Thus . . . the nuisance of recurring decimals is encountered less often when duodecimal notation is used. . . . this is particularly true of financial calculations, in which the twelve months of the year often enter into calculations.

The duodecimal article in Wikipedia has a lot more information (and is what I quoted above), if you're interested.

[Admiral Biscuit]

2387168

What if the powerhouse is actually a pumphouse, and the insulated towers on top are to receive magical energy to run the pumps? That could also explain why they don't have wires (here I go overthinking a cartoon).

[Admiral Biscuit]

2399753

I'm glad I've got merits--some days I wonder if I have the slightest idea what I'm doing. A lot of credit goes to my pre-readers, who are fixing stupid grammatical and astronomical errors (especially Humanist, who's going above and beyond).

At least I'm more qualified than this guy, I guess:
i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/008/342/IHNIWIAD.jpg

[Admiral Biscuit]

2400480

I'm sad to say, I'm not Dale, and I haven't met any magical pastel ponies. If I had, the story would be a lot shorter, because I'd be too busy frolicking around Equestria to be bothered to write about it.

I've always been pretty good at writing long rambling stories that are (somewhat) interesting, I guess. I'm out of practice, but I think I hit my stride around chapter 6 or so. There's still a lot more to come--and lots more cultural misunderstandings--so stay tuned!