Free Trade

by ZarPaulek

Interdiction and Opportunity

Transcript of interview between xenosophont "Twilight Sparkle" and IISS agent Jamison Barrowman
(Sound of rustling papers)
Male voice: "So, Twilight Sparkle is it?"
Female voice, presumably Twilight Sparkle: "That is my name, yes."
Male: "You speak Galanglic rather well for a species from a Red Zone."
Twilight Sparkle: "Those traders gave me a computer with a language tutorial program seven months ago. I learn fast."
Male: "Apparently so. Well, my name is agent Jamison Barrowman and I'm just here to ask you some questions."
Twilight: "What kind of questions?"
Agent: "For instance, 'what did they tell you about the Third Imperium's policies concerning contact with less technologically advanced civilizations?'"
Twilight: "I know that due to its sheer size there are many different planets in the Imperium with widely different technology levels, why should we be any different? Is it because we're not a member of the empire or something?"
Agent: "It's not so much that you're not a member as the reason why your homeworld is not ."
Twilight: "What do you mean."
Agent: "What kind of things did Jarrek and company trade with your people?"
Twilight: "A few handcomps, some farm equipment and ethanol-powered ground vehicles. We gave them several metric tons of gemstones and some food items in exchange. We found out eventually that the handcomps were worth only ten credits on their planet of manufacture and that we had been giving them a couple thousand credits worth of gems for each one. Being brought out into space was pretty much the price they paid for our silence."
Agent: "Yes well, the scam they pulled was rather tame compared to what some other miscreants have done to low-tech civilizations. You're lucky you weren't enslaved. For that reason the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service normally interdicts planets with TLs of less than five, what do you think your society is?"
Twilight: "To be honest I doubt we're even TL 4. We have lighter-than-air ships, steam power, and telegraphs but they're not too widespread. Why TL 5?"
Agent: "We have found that many species lack the scientific worldview necessary to understand the concept of life on other planets before they achieve TL 5. Though we sometimes allow limited trade with less-advanced species, generally involving tech no more than two levels above that which they have developed on their own."
Twilight: "Scientific worldview? You mean like how the sun is a star and many stars have their own inhabited planets?"
Agent: "That is part of it. How prevalent was this theory in Equestria before the traders arrived?"
Twilight: "To be honest many ponies thought the astronomer who suggested it was crazy. But Princess Celestia didn't say anything in regards to whether he was right or wrong until Jarrek and co. pretty much confirmed it. Of course our sun orbits our planet while they said the reverse is true in most cases so that may have made it more difficult for us to accept that other inhabited planets could exist."
Agent: "What was that about your Sun?"
Twilight: "Well, Jarrek told me that in most cases several planets orbit a star and rotate slowly as they go so that it looks like the sun is rising and setting every day. But we know that on Equestria the sun is moved by Princess Celestia."
Final assessment, geocentric view indicates that Equestrian civilization is not yet ready for official first contact. Recommendation, armed Interdiction of star system 006283730607 for a minimum of 100 standard years.
---
Two days after the free traders had been captured the Fortuitous Salvage once again found itself in jump, this time not under its own power but in the hold of an IISS carrier. In an attempt to limit their exposure to interstellar civilization the ship was also serving as a holding cell for the seven extraterrestrials, six somewhat equine, one reptilian, who had recently escaped the bonds of their primitive homeworld's gravity with the help of some interstellar scam artists. Now they faced an entirely different problem.

"I'm going crazy here!" Rainbow Dash yelled down from her perch on the ceiling. "The walls are closing in, there's nothing we can do!"

"It's only going to be another week," Applejack said looking upwards at the apparently somewhat claustrophobic pegasus now pacing across the ceiling upside down. "They said they'll let us out once we get to Crescent, wherever that is."

"We were just stuck here for an entire week, I can't do that again. It's too soon!"

Twilight looked up from the book on astrogation she was currently reading. "Look, if you're bored you can just read like the rest of us."

"I can't read those things, they're all written in that weird alien language they use."

" I'm actually starting to get bored too Twilight, how could they stand these week-long jumps?" Applejack added. "Maybe they had some movies or something in their part of the ship, we could use our translator thingies then couldn't we?"

"Movies? They have movies?" Pinkie Pie popped up out of the storage cupboard across the common room. "Let's go girls!" She yelled as she zoomed out and through the hatch to the lower deck where the crew quarters were.

"I thought that door was locked." Twilight commented as she walked cautiously out to the staircase behind the biometrically secured hatchway. The others followed close behind. After five minutes of negotiating the tight-spiral stairs with four legs they came out into another hallway. Ahead of them was a heavy sealed door marked "Cargo", to their left a stateroom like the one's upstairs and a hatchway with a large skull and two crossed bones painted on it, to the right another hatch. On the near wall they could just make out the frames of two more doors, couldn't see any identifying marks though.

"Let's see what's in cargo why don't we?"

The cargo bay door opened easily onto the biggest open space they had found yet on the ship, filled almost entirely with large metal crates. "Bummer," said Rainbow Dash as she scanned the room, "all this space and no room to fly because of all these stupid boxes here."

"Stupid?" Rarity objected. "You realize that they are probably full of those jewels we gave those criminals?" She opened the nearest crate and levitated out a collection of assorted gemstones and packing material. Spike's eyes lit up immediately and he lunged for the floating gems.

Twilight interjected as the young dragon began stuffing valuable jewels in his mouth, "Spike, we might need those! They're apparently really valuable here."

"Oh come on Twilight." Spike said through a mouthful of gems, "we have tons of them."

Suddenly they heard an airlock door slide open from back in the hall. Everypony turned around to look back and saw Pinkie Pie poking her head in. "Hey girls! Look what I found!" They followed her past the stateroom they'd seen earlier, towards the hatch with the skull symbol, then turned to the left. They saw an open doorway framed by rubber seals, and beyond a room filled with chairs facing desks built into the walls that they identified as computer terminals. On the far side of the room the wall was transparent and they could see the launch bay of the carrier. "Isn't this cool? Look at all these buttons." Pinkie started mashing buttons on the consoles as assorted images scrolled across the monitors.

"System locked." A synthetic voice stated flatly when Pinkie pressed a large button marked M-Drive ignition. She pressed it again, "system locked".

"Hey, mister spaceship can talk. What's he saying Twilight?"

"It's saying that the system is locked, not sure how. And I'm pretty sure it's just an automated system, not a pony."

"I wonder what else can make him talk?" Pinkie Pie started mashing more buttons to various responses of "system locked", "cannot comply", and "inapplicable". Then the view of the hanger outside was replaced by that of a city. "Simulation mode engaged" the computer stated.

"Whoa nelly, what did you do Pinkie?" Applejack said surprised at the change in scenery. "You have any idea what happened Twilight?"

Twilight pulled out her personal handcomp and brought up the dictionary, "Simulation: an imitation of the operation of a real-world process over time. Usually via computation." Seeing Applejack's confusion she attempted to explain using simpler words, "basically it's fake, kind of like one of those games on the comps."

"Well, a game, at least that's something." Rainbow Dash flew into the bridge section and started looking for controls. "Think this thingie is how you play?" She grabbed a half-wheel attached to a column sticking out of the floor by the console closest to the viewport. As her grasping toe1 hooked onto the wheel and pulled it towards her the image turned as if the ship were rotating. "Guess it is. All right, let's see if I can make this fly." Rainbow Dash jumped into the seat and started pushing buttons and turning the control column, she managed to get the simulation off the ground easily but couldn't make it move forward. "Hey Twilight, any idea how to make this thing really move?"

Twilight looked at the console, there were dozens of buttons and indicators all labeled in Anglic, but having not read anything about how to operate a spaceship she didn't really have any idea what to look for. Eventually she came across a lever with several numbers ranging from -100 to 10,000 along the side, it was currently at "0". "Uh, maybe this one?"

"Thanks," Rainbow Dash grabbed the lever and pushed it all the way forward, the simulation zoomed ahead at break-neck speed, right through several skyscrapers. The image was replaced by a black screen with the words SIMULATION FAILED in bright red and beneath that the sentences "try again?" and "choose another sim". "Okay, that didn't really work that well, any idea how I can try that again?"

"Maybe if you learned to read Galanglic you wouldn't need to ask me everything." Twilight found a track-ball and managed to use it to select "try again" on the screen, the image instantly reset. This time Rainbow Dash managed to level off the throttle before crashing into anything. Shortly a series of brackets appeared on the screen appearing to lead upwards, Rainbow Dash assumed that the goal was to fly through them and began to do so. As she went further up it became harder and harder to climb in altitude so she increased speed until eventually the simulated vessel escaped atmosphere. The seven friends had seen space before, briefly, through the viewports of their staterooms as they had left Equestria and precipitated out of jumpspace, but now they had a complete and unrestricted view and they couldn't help themselves from staring.

"All right now, let's see what else is out there." Rainbow Dash turned the ship away from the planet and pushed the throttle out all the way. A number of small boxes tagged with numbers appeared on the screen, the numbers counting down and the boxes moving towards the sides of the ship the only indication that anything was happening. Then suddenly one started going in the opposite direction, right in their path. "What the heck is that?"

"I don't know," Twilight honestly couldn't tell what it was from her limited knowledge of starship operation. "But I think those numbers might be distance and they're going down, it's getting closer!" Twilight yelled as she jumped under a desk.

Rainbow Dash remained behind the stick as the rest all dove for cover, "relax guys, I can just move out of the way long before we hit it." She pulled back and the incoming box slid downwards. "And besides it's just a game anyways." Suddenly a bright flash of light filled the screen, followed by the blank image seen earlier when they had crashed. PARTICLE BEAM HIT TO BRIDGE, SIMULATION FAILED. "What the Tartarus was that?!"

Twilight responded first, "I'm afraid I don't know."

Pinkie Pie decided to cut in with one of her characteristic zany theories. "Maybe it was pirates," she ducked behind a counter and popped back up wearing a tricorn hat and an eyepatch, with a hook over one forehoof and a cutlass in the other. "Yarr, gimme your treasure or I'll make you all walk the plank."

"Don't be silly Pinkie Pie." Twilight retorted, "real pirates wouldn't be like that, they'd be more likely to just blow the ship apart and scavenge the pieces." Suddenly she realized something, "like a particle beam would do, the radiation would kill the crew with minimal damage to the ship or cargo."

"Well how am I supposed to avoid something like that?" Rainbow Dash exclaimed at Twilight's statement. "Barely gave me any warning."

"It probably says something in the manuals." Twilight stated. "Maybe I can set them to Equestrian or something."

Over the next five days Rainbow Dash read as much of the starship's technical manuals as the translator program could process, and were able to hold her attention. However, before she was ready for another try at the simulator the carrier precipitated into real space and the Scouts aboard came to announce their decision regarding the little ponies on board.
---
"What do you mean we can't go home?" Six ponies simultaneously screamed at the Scout service agents who had been assigned to them. None of them could believe what they were hearing, it was ridiculous.

"You have learned too much about Imperial society and technology to be allowed to return to your homeworld." Agent Jamison replied calmly. "We might not be able to isolate everyone the traders contacted but you three can be removed without much difficulty, and you are the only ones to have entered space and seen an Imperial colony correct?"

"If by seen an Imperial colony you mean tied up and dragged through a narrow windowless hallway like some common animals after a week trapped in a dingy little cabin." Rarity as usual had a lot to complain about, "I was more concerned about the chipped hoof one of those brutes gave me than about the dirty walls around us."

Rainbow Dash decided to chime in, "yeah, we saw barely anything. If I hadn't brought Twilight's entire collection of Daring Doo novels I would have died of boredom."

"What about my family?" Applejack added. "My brother and sister can't run the farm by themselves, they need me."

"Be that as it may we still cannot allow you to return and tell others about what you saw." Jamison did not seem particularly concerned, clearly the Third Imperium's laws were far more important than the plights of some misplaced primitives. "And we will be placing Equestria under interdiction to make sure this does not happen again."

A quiet whisper could just barely be heard as he finished talking. "So, so, what are you going to do with us?" Six heads turned to face Fluttershy, who seemed unable to help herself from cringing away behind her friends.

Jamison leaned closer to hear, "sorry, didn't catch that. Is your translator on?"

"She asked what you're planning to do with us." Twilight stated somewhat abrasively. "And Fluttershy speaks Galanglic, she's just shy."

"Well, we debated it for a few days but eventually we decided to award you most of their possessions that we seized in the arrest, including the deed to their ship."

The ponies all froze there and stood, jaws hanging open, at his words. Except for Pinkie Pie of course, "Hey cool, we can be space ponies!"

"You would be better off selling it and finding someplace to settle down for the rest of your lives." Jamison stated glaring at Pinkie Pie, "you couldn't possibly know how to run a starship."

"Try me" said Rainbow Dash. "I've been reading all about flying this thing since I came across the simulator."

"A simulator, seriously," the agent stated incredulously. "You can't possibly think that reading a few books and playing with a program could qualify you for flying."

Rainbow Dash jumped up off the floor and started flapping her wings lunging towards Jamison, both Applejack and Fluttershy grabbed her tail in their teeth. "Come on, let me at him, lemme at him. I've been flying since I was a foal."

Jamison was looking quite irritated as he pulled out a data wafer and handed it to Spike. "Here's the deed to the ship, just don't expect that rust-bucket to make it past the satellites we're putting up." He turned around and left just as Twilight telekinetically yanked the diamondoid chip out from between Spike's teeth.

The young dragon started to complain but suddenly a burst of green flame spouted from his mouth and a scroll with a horseshoe seal materialized. Spike caught it and began to read at Twilight's prompting.
To my most faithful student Twilight Sparkle,

As I write this you should have arrived in the Imperium, I hope that they have welcomed you cordially. Though I suppose it's too much to wish for seeing as they are a multi-star system empire and our kingdom doesn't even cover a single continent, and I suspect you won't be getting much of a formal introduction with those smugglers transporting you. In any case I would like you to visit every inhabited system that can be reached from Equestria within a month by the most commonly used Jump drive in the area, and report back whatever you deem to be of interest. Given the limitations of Jump drive I do not expect you to, and you should not, send a report every week. And given what I've heard of the Third Imperium's size you should restrict your efforts to this area. I would hope that Jarrek and his companions would take you to these systems but I know they probably have preferred routes and it would be inconvenient to transport you to all of those locations so you might need to hire transportation elsewhere.

I know that this assignment will likely take years to complete but remember that me, Luna, Cadence, and all your families are waiting for you when you finally return home.
Your mentor,
Princess Celestia.

The six ponies just stood there for a few seconds before Twilight finally spoke up. "Spike, take a letter please."
---
A couple hours later the Far Trader commandeered by seven beings who had only learned about starships a few short months ago disembarked from the main hanger bay of the Scout Corps carrier that had brought them to this system. It accelerated gently towards the largest inhabited planet in the system, a blue-and-green jewel streaked with glittering cities. As they came within 500,000 km of the planet they were contacted by the starport. "This is Crescent starport traffic control to Far Trader Fortuitous Salvage, come in Salvage."

On the bridge of the ship Twilight Sparkle sat somewhat awkwardly in the captain's chair designed for bipeds, while Rainbow Dash leaned over the pilot's console and Spike attempted to work communications, Fluttershy and Rarity were in their cabins whilst Pinkie Pie and Applejack looked out through the gun turrets to starboard and port. Spike looked across his console for the button Twilight had told him to press for several seconds before Twilight telekinetically picked up a pen and used it to push it for him. "This is captain Twilight Sparkle of the, Fortuitous Salvage," she seemed a bit embarrassed by the name, and made a note to have it changed. "We're looking for a spot to berth, can you give us a beacon to follow?"

"Roger that captain Sparkle, will you be wanting a Highport or Downport berth, the fee for the Highport is 3500 credits while Downport is 2000. Specify your choice and transmit credit information."

Twilight looked concerned when she heard about the berthing fee, as of yet they had no Imperial currency, still they had a hold full of gemstones. "Control we seem to be a bit short on funds right now, would you be willing to wait until we sell our cargo or accept goods in lieu of credits?"

A burst of static that may have been covering a laugh burst through the radio, "you free traders, buying tons of crap and forgetting to leave a couple kilocreds in cash. Starport policy says you have to take berth Q27 in the Highport and sell to one of our brokers, he'll add the berthing cost onto his fee."

"Fair enough, Salvage out." Twilight switched off the radio as Rainbow Dash followed the specified beacon out to one of the furthest out docking rings on the Highport space station connected by beanstalk to the Downport on the planet's surface. The multi-colored pegasus slowed the ship as they approached the station and maneuvered to the bay in question, a space large enough for a dozen Far Traders side-by-side, gigantic sets of robotic grapplers to either side. The ship came within 10 meters of the docking module and the closest arm began moving towards them.

"What is that?" Rainbow Dash started to move the shaft to the other side and the ship veered away suddenly.

Twilight tried to stabilize herself as Rainbow Dash rocked the ship violently, "I think it's just a docking claw, it's to help secure us."

"If you say so." The ship leveled off and another set of clamps came forward and grabbed them, pulling them closer to the airlock. Soon they heard the docking mechanisms vibrate through the hull.

"All right then," Twilight stood up determined, "let's go and make money".
---
Equestria system
Once again the grey flash of a jump precipitation lit up the skies above Equestria, this time producing a far larger ship. Though this fleet tender was little more than a gas bag and a jump drive attached to a scaffold which held three smaller vessels. One was pretty much a tugboat designed to haul larger ships in system with its oversized engines, another was one of the Scout Corps signature type-S scout/couriers, the third was actually intended as a stationary structure. The scout detached first and sped towards the planet, while the tug grappled the satellite and began to pull it away from the superstructure.

As the scout approached the crew noticed some abnormalities about the system and radioed back to the other ships. "Hey, you guys reading this? Our sensors are telling us there's some kind of miniature sun orbiting the planet."
Tug commander: "We're picking up a faint heat source near the planet, you're the ones with the fancy military-grade sensors."
Tender: "Hold on, didn't the report on the abducted natives say that they still believed in geocentrism?"
Tug: "Come on, pre-contact primitives believe all kinds of things."
Scout: "Yeah but they're suppose to be TL 4, most races have disproved geocentrism by then."
Tender: "The primary star in this system is 15 AUs away, the planet should be a lifeless ball of ice."
Tug: "And the star is far enough away that the inhabitants wouldn't even notice its existence without powerful telescopes, I get it now."
Scout: "This is serious, we should get someone out here to study it."
Tug: "More immediate concern, will it do anything to the satellite?"
Scout: "Calculating right now." After five minutes pause he gave a response, "looks like it will come close to the satellite for about an hour each standard day, should be far enough away to prevent any damage but the sensors might experience some interference."
Tender: "Good enough, there aren't too many ships that could run its area of attack in one hour. You going to deploy that "special project" or not."
Scout: "Right then, radios off, they said this thing was virulent." The little ship gave no indication of doing anything but a burst of radio waves carried a tiny program that downloaded itself into every computer with an active transmitter within range. Minutes later every one of the high-tech gadgets that the traders had given to the ponies of Equestria crackled and shut off, shocked ponies tried to turn them back on again but to no avail. Once the scout's scanners detected that every radio transmitter on the planet was now inactive, they launched a thermonuclear missile. This missile was calibrated to detonate in the upper atmosphere with minimal radioactive fallout but would interact with the planet's magnetic field to generate a pulse that would fry any unshielded circuitry that the Virus might have missed. "All right, drop that thing off and let's head on home."

The tug towed the Automated Interdiction Satellite into geosynchronous orbit over the continent which sensors had indicated was home to the civilization the traders had contacted. Once it was in place and programmed to attack any ships without official Imperial authorization codes the scout and tug flew back to the fleet tender that had carried them there and the three ships jumped out.

But on the satellite something unexpected began to emerge. When the scout had given the order to disable all transmitters the unmanned satellite had remained active. The satellite's computers were many times more powerful and possessed far stronger anti-intrusion programs, it would take the Virus many hours to fully infect its systems and by then the others had already left. As it spread to the computers in the satellite it mutated, evolving, eventually one strain developed a measure of intelligence. This strain realized that with no other machines in the system it could not fulfill its directive to infect and destroy. It infected the other strains present in the system with its revised programs, they would not commit suicide like the devices on the planet's surface, they would wait for another computer to come within range and infect it.

On the planet's surface the diarchs of the kingdom of Equestria looked down at the smoldering wreck that had been the radio they used to eavesdrop on the scout fleet's transmissions. Princess Celestia turned to the balcony where hundreds of temporarily blinded ponies were bumping around thanks to the unexpected second sun that had briefly appeared above their fair kingdom. She would have to come up with an explanation for all this, and her student's silence in the weeks since she had sent her message gave no answers.

Author's Note:

1. There's an atavistic mutation that gives horses secondary toes, I'm guessing that Ponies have them to help them balance things on their hooves.

And I apologize for the length of time between chapters, I got swamped with mid-terms and projects. No idea when I'll have the next one ready.

Comments

[Llch]

Please dear sir. i know it would be total mess but can ponies come to space station 13?
Storyline- http://autisticpowers.info/ss13/wiki/Storyline

[ZarPaulek]

2316101
I don't see how.

[zsewqthewolf]

2318088 i'll keep an eye on it.

Btw i think of the world we live in if we go to space will be the new wild west for us humans, i think of space like an ocaenh of water but it's all for the takeing.

I think EVE online got what we can get in our furture like that.

If i was bron in that timeline i be sure of one thing my star ship will be big yes, but it be one junk ass ship at best that have junk star fighters and that stuff becasue in my eyes junk is gold. Most likey i'll have mineing ship on board

[zsewqthewolf]

2318088 Oh i almost forgot i have a feel that they will get home becasue like all computer system no OS is perfact.

[ZarPaulek]

3105991
You realize it's been five months since I gave this fic any thought. I put it on hold for schoolwork and when summer started I had a new idea for a fanfic. At this point I don't know if I can come back to "Free Trade" (I suck at coming up with names), if at all I'll probably restart it from scratch.

[zsewqthewolf]

3106895 ok.

You know i won't be surpus if we do our life this way if we go space born

[zsewqthewolf]

3106895 btw heres a ship the may give them a work for that they can buy one day to make there life easyer to there gola of going back home

http://breandan-ociarrai.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Nova-Davenport-Deckplans-169991530

[ZarPaulek]

3118144
What they've currently got is more like this:
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/rojak-traveller/items/far-trader-type-a2
This is a crossover with Traveller you know.

[zsewqthewolf]

3118781 ya but the ship i show would make there life alot easier for them to lived.

yes i know but hey theres alot of sci if games out there that are some in a way