Radiant Dawn had nothing to lose when she signed up with the Startrotter Association. So when Equus finds an ancient probe bearing a message of friendship, she was more than ready to volunteer herself for a one way trip in the spirit of Harmony.

She had trusted her life to an unproven spell to keep her asleep for the journey to a world thousands of light years away, knowing that she might never wake up again.

Years later, having somehow survived the perils of deep space travel, Radiant Dawn has awoken to find the counter spell failing...

Cover art by the highly talented Lunette
Originally written as an entry for the Transformations group's Pony-to-Human Contest by Two Bit

Proofreading kindly done by Timeluga

It has been almost fifty years since Equestria's first rocket. Not content with merely expanding to the stars, Equus has since consolidated their efforts into URSA - the Unified Royal Science Agency - to discover if ponykind is truly alone in the galaxy.

Unfortunately for the crew of a lone freighter, they find themselves unwittingly answering URSA's question when their freighter crashes on an alien world teeming with life. Staying put and waiting for rescue would have been easy, except for one small problem: they're not the only intelligent life on this planet.

Stranded and with no guidebook to fall back on, things can only go so well for them before they start falling apart.

About updates: Unwitting Pioneer is going to be my first story ever that I hope to complete, so expect updates to take a while to complete!

Also, thanks to the following people for their help in this endeavor of mine:
Mixtape; for giving me encouragement, Chyre; for their pre-reading help, Anon3mous1 and M127; for their help in turning the description and blurb from incoherent ramblings into something that I would never have been able to come up with.