Lucky Shadow thought he was getting his dream cargo pilot job. He ended up in a much different line of work.
Starlight Intersystem Logistics Company was the premier power in intersystem logistics within a thousand light years. Any job with Starlight was certain to bring power, wealth and glory to its holder. Lucky Shadow thought his name had finally meant something when he got the message accepting his Freighter Pilot application from Starlight. He knew that his future was set and chartered a shuttle to the nearest office. Nothing could get between him and his new job now!
Well nothing had ever gone right for Lucky before... Why would it go right now?
Unfortunately, the writing bug caught me too late to make the deadline, and I got slammed with FRC right after so it's submitted massively late in spirit
I've never posted anything, or seriously written at all, so approach with as much mercy as you deem necessary.
How Does Your Family Fit Into Our History? Answer in 250 Words or More.
Space is full of stuff.
Stuff of the kind that is practically indispensable to any significantly advanced civilization.
This was just the situation that Equus found itself in after Princess/Eternally-Worshipped-God-Empress Twilight Sparkle Friendship-magicked away most on world conflict. With their resources concentrated on science, it wasn't long until the first colonies began to spread across the void.
Space, however, is big.
Unfortunately big.
Impossibly big.
Massively big.
Bigly big.
B i g.
The shear vastness of the interstellar vacuum renders relatively “short” travel a lifelong undertaking and makes complete mockery of communications. Even within the edges of their own solar system, hurtling along at the cosmic speed limit, Laser and Radio Signals took months to years to get from the extremities to the core.
Solutions were dreamt, ad tested as technology caught up with imagination, but success at bridging the void came not. Even the deepest cryosleep couldn’t stop the ravages of time, and it’s assortment of associated insanities. Alicorn teleportation, once such a fantastic transporter, was found to be bound by the same lameness of light speed as all other escapes. The great minds had nothing.
And so it continued, billions, growing up, living, and dying across the light years. severed from the majority of their fellows by inexorable gaps. And there was such dying. Isolation destroyed what Twilight had once curated. Friendship and understanding was slashed to pieces by cosmic radiation and light delays.
The growing tensions caused by conflicting needs and isolation came to a head after Kuiper belt settlements of the fiercely democratic Vulpine BundesRepublik accidentally sent the wrong message to the Griffish despotism across the system; essentially calling Galarza IXX feeble, insane, criminal and completely ignorant of reality. While they expected yet another stream of 1’s and 0’s in reply, they received silence… followed by a stream of near-relativistic kill vehicles.
The damage was horrific, but mitigated by the difficulty of aiming across a light year and last minute forewarning. An entire arc of the sky was rendered nearly impassable due to the fields of pulverized asteroids.
Soon, as with wars before, nearly every major power was dragged into the war. It was a catastrophe.
Twilight did what she could to stop the Great Cascade War, first in centuries, but it was beyond her entire control.
It seemed for a while, a grand slugging match, with RKVs hurtled across space. But ultimately, peace came about through the BundesRepublik’s obsession with keeping around a militia, similar in mission, but advanced in technology to those that won their independence centuries before. A company, secreted across the void behind an interstellar asteroid, boarded Galarza XX’s capitol station and forced a surrender and disarmament.
While this nominally brought the war to an end, with both side’s allies falling in line, the fighting never stopped. Sone isolated and well-supplied bases defied orders and kept attacking, makeshift militias on the frontiers had taken advantage of the war to expand into rich areas held by the other sides, and to them, peace was no reason to stop. Only those on massive bodies, big enough and worth enough to be targeted had significant reason to stop.
Friendship had, on the whole, failed.
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This status quo carried on and on for nearly a generation, when a Hippogriff mathematical prodigy finally caused a sea change.
Magenta Seashell, OOE, HGM, Der Groß, MMH (Order Of Equestria, Hippogriff Grand Marshall, The Great, MatematikMuseumHaupman (Mathematics Museum Captain)) hadn’t intended her physics thesis to revolutionize space travel, but when getting advice from international colleagues, they soon realized that her calculations, combined with a carefully designed runic generator, could shatter that cosmic speed limit, once thought to be so… limiting.
After the six scientists realized the magnitude of her discovery, and the implications it could have for the future, they set out to congregate on Equus, in Eriskirch, Under the BundesRepublik’s orbital dome defenses. It took them more than a decade, but they finally created a device, imprecise & unrefined—if one could call .0025mm tolerances ‘imprecise’—that could propel a spacecraft faster than light. It would stretch a spacecraft out into a theoretical 2D plane that sliced through reality, while preserving 3D inside of it. With the use of conventional Magic-assisted Ion drives, a craft could travel across this plane to reach in minutes, hours or days, destinations that would have taken months, years or decades in normal space.
With their new miracle machine, the scientists returned to their nations to give each this new technology, thus guaranteeing one couldn’t monopolize it. The new Magenta Drive Factory & Dry-docks facilities went up in: The valley city Cavalese on Equus for the Vulpines; Ponyville on Equus (terrible name for a city that large) for the Ponies; Utopia Planitia on Mars for the Independent Colonial Federation; Gustavo Station in the asteroid belt for the Griffons; Firewall City on Venus for the Kirin; and Seashell herself went to Ring 0 around Saturn (Where I was born!) for the Hippogriff Kingdom.
After the Magenta Drive was introduced into Service with the Major Powers (And disseminated to minor ones), the border wars slowly died down to the sporadic state they occupy today as simply traveling to a brand new system with more resources than their wildest dreams was a much more appealing option to those in overcrowded stations.
And now today our system is mostly peaceful (except for those sporadic border fights) and all the universe is our oyster!
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Comments: Mr. Starlog: Great pearl Kelp! I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I’m running out of time to read all you’re writing for me! (when I say ‘250 or more’ please stick to around 250-500) You probably could have done without the first section, since just about everyone knows that part of the story, but good job highlighting the different points of view of belters and worlders in regards to the peace agreement. Also “Sporadic”? I’m sorry hun there’s no way to classify what goes on in the belt as “sporadic” Finally, remember to use the proper “Equestrians” instead of Ponies At least you didn’t use fox instead of vulpine, you avoided a serious diplomatic incident there ;)
“Mr. Shadow, I don’t know what they smoke these days, but you best cease immediately”
“But I’m not high! I received a—”
“Notice of an employment offer at Starlight Intersystem Logistics via the Setcom, yes, I heard you the first time. And that’s why you absolutely must be on some kind of mental inhibitory agent to think that Starlight would stoop so low as to hire some record-less nobody, not just from a backwater colony this remote, but an even more remote subsetlement orbiting it!”
“But I—”
“Can Barely walk in this gravity! How can you expect to handle the acceleration of a Luminance-Class Innersystem Freighter if you can barely handle .84 g’s?”
“Well they have dampeners for a reason…”
“Dampeners which suck precious energy and can fail. We have millions of applicants who can both survive g-loads which would shatter your legs AND have documentation of experience”
“But I have my flight logs! Easily over 20,000 hours!”
“We only except official corporate records, personal logs are just too easy to forge”
“So does every other ‘corporation’ in this entire planetary system! No one takes personal logs!”
“How unfortunate. Now please, for the 3rd time, we have no job for you, please depart our premises.”
“But—”
Sigh “Security to the front desk please.”
“But I—”
“No, Mr. Shadow.”
“Alright alright, you see? I’m leaving, I’m walking out the door!”
“And what a wonderful sight it is, Sir.”
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Lucky Shadow regretted it all. He regretted talking with the condescending secretary. He regretted entering the cold, gray, sterile lobby in the first place. Hell, he regretted believing the Setcom message that led him to believe he could escape this infernal collection of moons, rings and planet that had bound his life.
When he opened up his notifications list nearly a week prior and saw a message claiming to be from the premier logistics company in the whole of civilization, he thought his life might finally be on the up and up! Like his name actually meant something more than a cruel joke! Sure he had his doubts, of course Starlight wouldn’t approve his application. Of course they wouldn’t use such a causal form of communication. But the chance was too good to not take. And thus, he found himself buying a shuttle ticket with the measly scraps of currency his cousin could afford to pay him for flying the ring-miner. And what was his reward for bankrupting himself on this voyage? Rejection and being nearly kicked out by some security goon.
And now, here he was. On a street, paved with compacted regolith blocks. A tram stopped at a nearby station.
I could make it there before it leaves. He thought, If only I could afford it. Sweet Celestia, I’m tired.
His stomach took this opportunity to remind him that he hadn’t eaten since departing his home half a rotation ago.
And I’m hungry. Tired, Hungry, Broke. Damn it all.
The sky’s weird too. Too few stars, too much light. Completely ruined by this damn atmosphere.
I hate this place.
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He kept hobbling through the settlement. Looking down at the sidewalk, he noticed it had changed to partially rusted steel grating,
Probably scrap from one of the original colonial ships
In fact, now that he took a chance to look around, he noticed that nearly everything around him was some kind of improvised or scavenged level of construction. Crumbling grayish bricks, mismatched paneling, organic structural meshes. Why build when you can bodge?
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He continued in an abject stupor until he sighted the gray beach and realized he’d reached the end of the island this stupid little settlement was on. It was actually a quite beautiful sight, with the orange sun, dimmed by proximity to the horizon splashing light across the pink water, contrasted by the haze gray skies and gunmetal shores. A flock of Pegasi and a singular griffon flew over the wave tops, evidentially returning from one of the islands in this cluster. Cluster? No, that’s a word for stars and galaxies. Arki-pelge? No,
“Archipelago!” Lucky exclaimed!
That’s what this is… Dad… taught me that word… Hearing a cough, he looked to his side and saw a chartreuse hippogriff to standing next to him and glaring. In the stranger’s claw was a cloth bag, with a number of crumbs on the ground around him. A bit down the beach in front of them were a couple tiny amphibians scampering towards the waves.
“Sorry…” He said to the stranger sheepishly and quickly slinked off.
His stomach, evidently annoyed that he had failed to heed its previous requests for sustenance took the opportunity to shoot out a debilitating wave of hunger and pain.
Cost be damned, Lucky thought after recovering from the crippling hunger pains, I need food.
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It turns out that growing up on simple protein & fiber rations and the odd vegetable dish did not prepare one for the smells of meat cooking. Despite the waterfront being lined with dozens of restaurants, the smells of frying meat from half the shopfronts churned his already discomforted stomach.
Finally, the restaurants on the waterfront ran out, replaced by an eclectic variety of housing. Even though he was now free of the revolting odors of burnt meat, the pain of hunger only increased. Finally, he bit the bullet, turned up a street and slipped into some kind of dive bar.
Looking around, he saw a darkened, bustling and packed tavern. Gray compacted regolith bricks lined the walls and the only light came from lamps over the bar and some candles on the tables. It looked like a real life set from an ancient science fiction film.
Seeing no completely open tables, pondered if he should wait for one to open, but his hunger quickly vetoed the idea. Instead, he went to the nearest table and just sat down on an open seat.
“Excuse me SIR..” Lucky looked up through the hunger. There were five other creatures at the table around him, a towering wall of bluegray feathers which had evidentially been the source of the voice, a brown cloak with a zebra muzzle poking out, a straw colored unicorn wearing an old ocean-navy captains cap, a pastel aqua hippogriff and a short fox wearing the faint lavender work suit of Starlight’s maintenance department. All of them were glaring at him
“Uhhh…” Lucky uttered. No one at the table spoke until the fox spoke up: “Can you, by chance, fly a SILC intersystem shuttle?”