Alabaster: Magical Findings

by Hegamonia

First published

An asteroid that was conveniently missed on sensors has collided with a colony ship

The USS Alabaster, the US's first inter-system colony ship, uses a prototype Matter/Antimatter annihilation reactor to power the 4.6 million-ton craft to LV-426, where the four thousand colonists and hundreds of construction workers, miners and engineers, will make a new home for themselves. The sponsor: Weyland Yutani, took only volunteers for the mission, volunteers that did so only because of their patriotism, with over two-thirds of the ship was taken up by cargo and the command module was simply a tug that was welded on with the compatibility to use the new engine. During the flight a conveniently stray asteroid hit the ship, either being exposed to the ravages of the vacuum or killed outright, all but ten survived the impact, this is their story

Complete Rewrite

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I haven't been able to come up with any minecraft ideas since I last modified this story so it's gonna turn into a completely different thing; it will keep the picture but everything else will be completely different; name, story, everything. I am sorry to those that were hoping that I would make a minecraft story but... I don't know what to do now. The name Herobrine's Wrath is now fair game for anyone who wants to write a minecraft story, and I will keep this chapter up for the first few weeks after this is published. Now then, off to copy/paste the chapters of the new story

Part 1: Background check on us

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Name: USS Alabaster
Class: Alabaster-class Colony/warship
ETA to LV-426: MALFUNCTION, UNABLE TO CALCULATE
Due date: May 25, 2233
Current date: August 1, 2509
Hull integrity: WARNING; HULL BREACH DETECTED, ALL HANDS ABANDON SHIP
Crew: [CORRUPTED]
Acting captain: WILLIAM A. NIKKEI
Passengers: [CORRUPTED]
Cargo Status: 3/4 boxes intact and inside
Current Cargo Roster[CLASSIFIED]: 4,000,000 kilograms Titanium, 50 M41A4 Pulse Rifles, 5000 clips ammunition, 50,000 kilograms Steel, 500 barrels dry fuel, 250 boxes of motherboards, 250,000 kilometers of wires, 50 25m fiber-optic cables, 55 full suits of armor, 4 Class-V Drop-ships, 5 Class-VII Armored Personnel Carriers, 1 class-II assault tank, 3 Class-VI Fast Attack transports, 2 Class-I Space/atmosphere combat fighters, 2 kilograms of Ostrich eggs[WARNING: DO NOT OPEN]

Hello there, chaps! My name's William A. Nikkei, acting captain of the remains of the USS Alabaster, me and about three-quarter dozen more, Kara N. Walker, our outback engineering expert, and local hothead; Drave'n Del Lavionne, Russian drunkard and firearms specialist; Legion, AI of the ship and expert on all things in it; Strosstrupen, a German scientist; Samsung V. Nikkei, my brother and scientist; Kayleb T. Reine, French secondary engineer; and three security guards stuck in cryo. Our ship was hit by a stray asteroid on its way to LV-426, a colony world on the fringes of UN space, over 6 thousand were aboard and all hands were either killed on impact or sucked out into the vacuum, aside from the lucky ones; us, we were in a different compartment of the ship that wasn't hit by the stray rock. The asteroid crushed the hull about halfway to the hold and sheared off portions of it the rest of the way up, all the necessary components; the bridge, life support, engines, reactor etc. were in the rear end of the ship, and the hold was in a vacuum already, so none of the cargo that was not hit by the debris was lost; about three-quarters of it was still inside. Half of the ship was open to the void and a small piece of debris was lodged inside of life support, frying that, the fuel tanks were damaged badly, but fortunately were not leaking, the reactor was shot and nobody was able to find their way to the cargo hold, food, well, real food was low and the dried up, preserved 'food' was in the front of the ship, damn Weyland Yutani and their inconveniently placed areas. The ten of us were changed when the ship entered some sort of spacial distortion, forcing us on four hooves, giving us equine bodies, wings and horns, I was the tallest of the bunch, and Kara was the shortest, considering her profession it would be helpful, the rest were all either just at my chin or above Kara's eye level. A few days after the incident, Kayleb was working on unsealing one of the doors and the hull breached next to her, blasting her out into space, but I was looking out a window when I saw her flying by, imagine my surprise at seeing her doing the impossible, and when I tried it, I actually felt the solar wind on my wings, and went outside for quite a while every 72 hours, admiring the beauty of the void without the blockage of windows. Every time I did I felt the winds grow stronger and stronger, until several years ago I was able to circle around a gas giant in twenty minutes from a geosynchronous orbit, and I only got faster, the antimatter engines were barely operating in acceptable efficiency, and Kayleb was hard pressed to make it more efficient on the amount of Antimatter we could produce daily, but now that we know we could cut power to the life support, which was one of the most power-hungry pieces of equipment on the ship, he is no longer under so much pressure.

I looked out the window at the vastness of space, my original figure going into lean muscle that practically melted the fat off my body, especially in my chest and barrel, where most of the flight muscles were located, Kara was never strong, but her technical skill was invaluable in repairing the ship, and when she was changed she was put out of action until Legion could help her relearn how to hold something. I was one of the best and brightest programming minds in the world, so good, in fact, that everyone either wanted me to get through some sort of security wall, reinforce one, or just plain wanted me dead due to my knowledge, even my PDA and Tablet expressed how good I am at my job, and only one other person could match me, and he was long since gone up there. Strosstrupen was a physics expert and actually calculated how likely it would be we would crash into a star, which was highly unlikely in our lifetimes, if we had lifetimes, Reine was an expert on anything energy and managed to fly into a red star and come out the other side completely unscathed, I can't say so much for myself, considering that I was badly singed when I left it, Samsung could talk your ear off but he made a lot of sense, his apparent special skill was that he could go on and on for hours at a time in one breath, Lavionne was a linguist and when he started speaking in languages nobody understood it made enough sense to make his be he could talk any known language, mine was speed, pure speed, in an atmosphere I could travel close to five times the speed of light in a year, in the void, it was far faster, clocked in at the same numbers, but in seconds instead, I joked that even Superman would be hard pressed to beat me. The tattoos on our flanks all corresponded to what we achieved, but mine was oddly absent, Kara had a screwdriver and a spanner forming a cross, Reine had a sun with a hair-thin line going out of it, Samsung had a picture of lungs, Strosstrupen had a very famous formula on his flank; E=MC squared, Lavionne had a mouth with sound-waves coming out. Last year, we came across a yellow star and I felt much, much more refreshed, so much, in fact, that I was almost shivering with energy, my horn was glowing a dark blue while my orange coat looked almost electrified, with sparks jumping across it every now and then, the area around me began flowing like water and caused the metal to crumple and break open, sucking me out and headed directly at it, unable to move and the others had no clue.

The frozen look on my face spoke of unimaginable amounts of sheer terror in my eyes, as my horn glowed even brighter and the energy discharges got more intense the closer I got, not even my heart was spared as it's beats went erratic, then go into super beat that sounded completely constant in my ears, then all I heard was the storm of wind inside of the star when I breached the ionosphere, and my body twitching in all directions, the muscles trying desperately to break the iron grip. When I got into the inner sphere all I could see was yellow, and the pulses of tendrils extending out to encase me in more energy, it seemed the closer I got to the middle the more it coiled around me, and when I got to the middle I let out a silent scream as my twitching body jerked and twitched, my nerves firing off random and erratic signals that my brain interpreted as pain, pleasure and more pain, the tendrils encircling me started pulsing faster, and faster, and faster, until it pulsed so fast that they looked completely solid. All I could see was white, all I could hear was the rushing winds from the solar core, then, all at once, it stopped, no whiteness, no noise, nothing, all I saw were stars and their tendrils, coiling and encircling each other in their golden energy, some red, others blue, a few purple, it was absolutely beautiful. Then I saw our ship, the energies were coiled around the hull breaches, and I looked at myself, and in my new sight, I saw that I was covered in golden light and surrounded by grasping tendrils, each connecting to a different star. Each one had something inside of it, whether it was more energy, knowledge or locations, it was overwhelming, and then, as if it knew, there was silence, and my vision returned to normal, and when I looked down at myself again I still had everything intact, and when I saw my flank it was a star, a yellow star, connected to a small group of other stars by the same tendrils that encircled me, with an obsidian sword and golden shield side-by side behind them. I flew back to the ship and trotted to my quarters and went to bed...


({LOCATION REDACTED BY ORDER OF CELESTIA})

The underground command center was crumbling, the bombardment above was still going on, but below the headquarters of a once unbelievably technologically advanced faction, lay a chamber, and in that chamber was a series of many tanks, and in each of these tanks lay a bipedal being, each the exact same one as before it. The one furthest back had several areas where metal covered and even replaced flesh, his right eye now a camera with a red lens; his left arm replaced by a robotic replacement; his right leg covered in greyish-black metal, a portion of his chest covered in the same material. His eyelids were twitching as adrenalin was artificially created and pumped through his veins, the sleeper agents being destroyed by a special enzyme in the adrenal, the body started slowly moving, as if it had not used its muscles in a while; if at all, the head looked up and a dark blue eye darted around, before settling on the glass in front of it, his tank quickly drained and he moved his left arm backwards, before smashing it through the thin glass and retracting it. He moved out of the tank and landed on the ground with a soft thump, on the wall opposite the tanks were uniforms, each the same thing: a black and red robe with black coverings. He took one off and put on the garments and left the chamber, headed for another part of the facility to plot his revenge...

Part 2: Knowledge Sharing

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Date: August 2, 2509
Colony ship USS Alabaster

I dreamed of... something, I don't know what I was looking at, it looked like me, but its coat was dark black, and the horn was a twisted stub with insectoid wings, on its back, the most striking feature was the oblong, obsidian dome that was its head, and the bladed tail swishing back and forth behind it. I watched it grab a purple-colored equine, and a smaller alien latch onto her face, then, everything was a blur, and when it stopped it shown the same equine in an organic building, when she woke up her chest convulsed, she shrieked in pain and something bulged just under the skin, then the creature emerged and her head fell to the side, dead. I looked down and saw I was in the same cocoon and felt an agonizing pain in my chest, then another one of those things came out and I woke up, screaming my lungs out, and sweating, I raised a hoof to my chest and, upon feeling nothing, shakily got up and took a few deep breaths to calm myself down, the mental flood also came along and helped me drive away the dream. The dream felt more like reality than a dream, I felt that thing burst out and saw it and heard it screech in that horrible voice, whatever caused that was trying to tell me something, but I had no idea what, the influx of information gradually reduced to just a twinge in my left eye, and then I saw through my mind numbers, letters, formulas, scriptures, entire books of information, theories, facts, opinions, information. I quickly got my PDA and frantically tried to type while keeping up with the influx, my hooves seemed to type faster than my mind and managed to get most of the data down, but the text file read 8.5 gigabytes, two-thirds of my hard drive, but what I saw as I scrolled through was well worth the cost, I got entire training manuals for this 'magic' and started cut/pasting the information into books based on title, somehow even videos managed to end up on the books. I reordered the massive text file into more manageable book files, and started looking at the basics of the power, I was amazed at what I found out; magic is a source of power within all living beings, more so than others, Unicorns can utilize this power most commonly, earth ponies and pegasi have their own innate magic, one that allows earth ponies to grow bigger and better foods faster and allows pegasi to fly and control the weather, an alicorn, which is a combination of all three, has the magic of all three races, including their own if they control a certain aspect of the environment. I mulled this over a bit and realized that the tattoos on our flanks contribute to our special talents, but I had no idea on what mine is truly supposed to be, is it the collective might of the superheated balls of gas or the destroyer of such stars? Or is it something completely different? I had nothing to which to answer those questions, but at least I know that each and every one of us had something special. I was still pondering it when Kara came in and shouted at me "what the hell were you thinking?!"

"what are you talking about"

"you flew into a star and moments later, the bloody thing disappears, and the shockwave nearly wrecked what wasn't already damaged enough!"

"oh"

"you BETTER have a good explanation for this!"

"well you see-"

"and don't say that it wasn't your fault, because somewhere it was"

"alright then, how do I tell you it? Because I was standing out the window when I turned my attention to the star that was there!"

"oh so you're saying that it sucked you in aren't ya?"

"yes"

"great, great fuckin' dandy, please, tell me how it happened"

"I was about to say that"

"just spit it out"

"I was watching the star when I heard an electrical discharge and my horn started glowing blue, I tried to turn my head and found I couldn't move, the wall in front of me rippled like water and gave way, I entered the star and, I guess sucked it's energy dry, flew back here and slept"

"forgive me if that sounds farfetched"

"then how do you explain my mark?"

"what mar- oh that mark"

"yes, that mark"

"figured out what it means yet?" she looked skeptical but kept her mouth shut

"well, I'd say I'm either a destroyer of suns, or their collective might against something, what, you got me"

"so it's narrowed down to two, either you're the big bad guy of the stars, or you're their sword and shield"

"pretty much"

"but if you were their destroyer, why make the sword in the back golden?"

"yeah, you're right, why would that be?"

"and wouldn't a star be destroyed by a black hole? So why would it be that if the design would be a black hole sucking in a star?"

"good point, so you think I'm some sort of protector?"

"at least, in theory"

"laugh it up, fuzzball"

"I'd rather not" I chuckled at her face, then said "well, if that's the case why am I not making the metal glow white-hot beneath my hooves? The same reason I was able to absorb the energy of the star?"

"I want to say yes, but I have no clue if it's true or not, I'm an engineer, not a doctor"

"whatever you say, Bones"

"I told you not to use that name for me"

"oh well, what's said has been said"

"so, what are you doing right now?"

"I had a flood of information just a minute ago, and I put all I could on my PDA, 8 and a half gigabytes of data from that"

"wow, nice"

"yep, want to take a look afterwards?"

"sure"

"alright, so far, it seems that the species we are now a part of has four different types of energy they named 'magic', those like you and me get the magics of the other three including your own if it deals with something in the environment"

"what, like metal and gases?"

"yes"

"what are the three types?"

"I guess Earth, Air, and elemental magics, Earth magic allows those that wield it to grow bigger and better crops faster, Air magic allows for flight and control of the weather, and Elemental magic allows those with horns to manipulate the world around them"

"so, does it say how they are manifested and used?"

"of course it does, it wouldn't be a manual if it didn't tell us how to operate the new gear that I just discovered"

"how do you know if it was you that discovered this?"

"loser has to go to the cargo hold on foot"

"deal"

"now then about this magic..."

({LOCATION REDACTED, NEWLY NAMED BROTHERHOOD OF NOD HQ})

The castle was in ruins, but it was far enough away from prying eyes that a base could be built without too much trouble. The being before smiled as his few followers started gathering supplies to rebuild and upgrade their new temple, he personally gathered up the smoking remains of Nightmare Moons armor and had them redone for the leader of new arrivals, but he was vague on who'd they be other than he was as tall as Celestia, male, had a fiery orange coat and a blue mane, and let them figure out what to do on that information. The great hall was to be transformed into a massive congregation room; the crumbling supports were removed and were replaced with crossbars in the ceiling, the glass panes were enlarged and given blood-red glass depicting Nod achievements, their banners; hexagonal shapes with scorpion's tails in the middle, were draped above the doorways in the back. The former throne area as made a stage, with a podium on it, and three massive television screens on the wall behind it, the entire underground complex would be rebuilt from the ground up and given dozens of large research areas, factories, living quarters, farms, armories, barracks and training grounds, power stations and substations would be placed at key points along the complex, with each station going to a factory and a substation going to each room. His personal quarters would be in the bedroom of Celestia's former castle, her bedroom, the technology that would make this massive task could be easily procured and if it breaks than his unicorn followers could repair the machinery and keep them digging. The power stations will have multiple cooling towers at the surface, all producing very little aside from small trickles of water vapor and oxygen, the man prided himself in this feat, as what Celestia's followers had were steam-powered, and all of their few engines used coal as fuel, his used the surrounding air to provide the necessary materials: hydrogen and oxygen. The man saw his followers quickly assembling a makeshift bridge and a small camp was set up for until the temple was deemed liveable, he turned to one of the tents and started drawing up plans for his future war against the two sisters

Part 3: Something wierd is going on

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Date: April 26, 2511
Time: 5:23 PM Ship time

The nightmares have been recurring, the same exact ones, but each one showing one more equine than the last, but last night, it showed us crashing down in the midst of a battle between equines and some sort of insectoid race, slightly resembling them in shape and size, but everything else was different, their style, their technology, color, everything, the insects had explosives, guns, planes, bayonets, bombs, a few even had missile launchers. The equines were getting slaughtered by the thousands beneath the insects, but eventually overwhelmed them and took the position, in the front were two alicorns, one pearl white with a pastel rainbow mane, the other dark blue with a starry mane, and the purple unicorn that kept recurring in my dreams was in between them. I shook the thought and concentrated on the system in front of us; a garden world that has the sun and moon orbit it, nobody in the crew could figure it out and a vote was held on if we should unfreeze the three guards so they can stretch their new bodies out, and the vote was unanimous. I opened up each of the cases and let them stumble out, coughing and breathing heavily, then hear it go down into yells and accusations pointed my way at their new form, but the look in my eye quickly shut them up, the fog had blocked their tags and now I can see their names;
'Corporal Dell Conagher: Driver'

'Lieutenant 1st class Brance Wimbleton: Pilot'

'Corporal Jane Doe: Smartgunner'

I pondered this in my head 'Smartgunner, a pilot and a driver? why would the USCM be needed on a colony ship?' someone didn't tell the passengers something and it cost them their lives. I honestly had no idea why the USCM would be involved in a simple colonization effort, other than things weren't as they seemed, I'd have to check the cargo roster a little later but something shook the ship a little. I left them to their screams and yells and told the others that the three are awake, but told them that something is very wrong about the failed mission we volunteered for, then explained that the three aren't security guards but Colonial Marines. That did not make them happy, and Samsung volunteered to go in and shout at them and explain what is going on, something that I give him credit for, for they were shouting loudly, but a few moments after they quieted down it gone back up into screams, then down for the second time and stayed that way, relatively. Samsung poked his head out and nodded at us, we came in and found the three huddled together in the corner trying to figure out what was going on. I approached them and started explaining what was going on, and after a few minutes of them accusing me of this they finally settled down and listened intently for what I had to tell them...

({Temple Prime})

Everything was going smoothly, the being was sitting in a chair reading off the latest news in Equestria while sipping a cup of tea, the Temple was built with no problems and the reactors were fully functional, now all he had to do was wait for one of the splintered factions to resurface and he could utilize one of his newest AI commanders against them. None have resurfaced so far, either because they were wiped out or also biding their time, but his followers are growing, and soon he will be able to take nearby towns, he already has sleeper cells planted in each of his planned cities, they only need the signal to begin. One of his followers knocked on the door and entered, with a datapad on their production and research, she silently gave it to him and left. While he read through he thought aloud "some day, Celestia, you will see why you do not try to hold back change, for the messiah has returned, the populace will have what is rightfully theirs, and you will see this day, for I have plans for you, you will come to respect the name that is Kane, or I will make sure you fear it"