Equestria never found out the final fates of Angel 3, Angel 4, Angel 5, Angel 6, and Angel 7.
Angel 3 made five successful round-trip dimensional hops. This gave the Equestrians a false sense of security, particularly since two of those five were emergency returns from low-magic worlds. The sixth trip ended less than a minute after arrival in the new universe when the local Queen Nightmare Moon sensed an intruder in her eternal night and snuffed it out.
Angel 4 likewise returned five times successfully from interuniversal jaunts, only one of which came from an emergency abort. Unfortunately its sixth jump landed it in a universe that had no magic at all in its laws of physics, and it ceased operating instantly, trapped in a solar orbit millions of miles from the nearest planet, never to be seen again.
Angel 5 returned safely from its maiden jaunt. On its second trip, unfortunately, it was detected by Empress Twilight Twinkle of that universe, who used her magic to teleport it to herself, deactivate it, and then to carefully disassemble it for proper study. Unfortunately when she reassembled it the probe no longer remembered how to return home, and so it remained in that universe, sparking another Equestria’s exploration of the stars.
Angel 6 proved the workhorse of the lot. It returned home seven times, twice due to emergency abort. Once it even detected radio signals from the third planet from the star, but not from the fourth. Sadly, on its eighth voyage it appeared in the midst of a fleet of alien invaders, who swatted the little robot ship like a fly before resuming their campaign of experimentation on humanity.
And Angel 7 launched, reached what had been considered safe operating distance from Equus, and took its first- and last- dimensional hop. The ponies never saw it again. Neither did anyone else. It popped back into existence mere meters above the surface of the moon, and a second later it was nothing but metal confetti strewn across the newest of its millions of craters.
That was yesterday. Today Princess Twilight Sparkle, Moondancer, and Lemon Hearts of the Equestrian Space Agency sat on one side of a conference table while Queen Chrysalis, Occupant, and Warner von Brawn of the Changeling Space Program sat on the other. “So,” Chrysalis said to begin the meeting, “how long until we get Angel 8 on the pad?”
“There isn’t going to be an Angel 8,” Twilight Sparkle said flatly.
“What?” Chrysalis slammed a perforated hoof onto the conference table. “We are not giving up on our people, princess!”
“This isn’t working!!” Twilight Sparkle shouted right back. “It’s taken us over two months to get reports on twenty-three worlds. Twenty-three. And that’s only if you count ‘this world kills probes’ as a report! If you don’t, make that eighteen. And if you don’t count reports that only say 'too little magic to function', then make it thirteen. One world every three to four days. And only infinity minus twenty-three to go!!” It was Twilight’s turn to hit the table. “I am not wasting our resources on an approach which obviously isn’t going to work!”
“Very well,” Chrysalis murmured, a razor edge buried in her candyfloss tones, “and what other ideas do you have?”
“We’re just able to use the Amicitas life support link to get an interdimensional vector,” Twilight replied. “But we don’t know the distance along that vector. We need them to send up a beacon- some really powerful spell whose effect will get through the distortion at the dimensional interface and let us triangulate their exact position!”
Chrysalis raised her eyebrows. “So your brilliant plan,” she said, “is to have Starlight Glimmer cast a truly powerful spell in a world with almost no magic. That is, of course, the brilliance I’ve come to expect from ponies.”
Moondancer jumped out of her chair. “At least we’re trying things!” she snapped. “What have you come up with? What are you contributing to this effort?”
“Money,” Chrysalis replied. “Parts. Tools. My subjects. And my piloting skills, which are not insignificant. I am doing my part, Miss Moondancer. And I expect all of you to do yours!”
“What- why- why you conceited-“
Occupant leaned over the table, waving his hooves frantically, talking around his buck fangs, “Everybody, please, could we calm-“
“I am conceited because I have earned my conceit, little pony!”
“What you’ve earned is a good kick in the-“
And, not for the first time since the loss of Amicitas, inter-agency cooperation broke down, to resume only when all participants were too sore of throat to shout anymore.
TRANSCRIPT – WATER TELEGRAPH EXCHANGE, ESA BALTIMARE and ESA SHIP AMICITAS
ESA: Baltimare calling Amicitas, over.
AMICITAS: Amicitas calling Baltimare, use suit FB for response, over.
ESA: Roger, Amicitas. Report on transmutation experiment, over.
AMICITAS: DF – SG is lying down. Experiment used one battery, attempted to convert surface of planet within nearby crater to aluminum oxide as per recommendation from Earth. Battery was exhausted after conversion of one-tenth of the crater, and crater reverted to pre-spell composition as soon as the spell ran out of power. Estimate spell will require forty-four batteries at full power to seal the cave plus additional four batteries to make the spell permanent. Our current capacity is eight and a half batteries maximum. By the time we have enough power to cast the spell we won’t need the cave anymore, over.
ESA: Understood. Alternatives?
AMICITAS: Are there any spells to fuse crystals into a single seamless crystal? Would they require less power, over?
ESA: We’ll research it. But can we ask you to repeat the transmutation spell with full power, over?
AMICITAS: SG is flat on her back with an ice pack on her horn, Baltimare. Why do you want her to try again, over?
ESA: We want a really big spell. We’re hoping it’s strong enough that we can detect it here, over.
AMICITAS: CB – We can’t afford to waste magic power on ineffective spells. We need a cave sealing spell that will work with what we can get. Please get back to us on that, over.
ESA: Working the problem. Out.
7 seconds yes! :)
Edit: checked just in time. Love this story.
Hmm. Could be XCOM, but honestly could be almost any alien invasion story ever.
As for Twilight Twinkle, I have no idea who that is.
Is that an earlier generation?
8856868
or it could be fallout
i kinda wish for that nightmare moon didn't snuff it out would be funny to see her face seeing that she is no longer the only thing out there
what they really need are some much bigger rockets
8856868
Twilight Twinkle was originally going to be the name of Twilight Sparkle in Faust's pitch bible
8856868
I read a story with that name once, a long time ago, it was a mass effect crossover i think?
it is in my to read list somewhere (all 70 pages of it)
8856868
found it
Mass Core 3: Thebe Paridigm
Hmm. I find myself very curious if there was anything of particular interest in the system Angel 6 found with radio signals from the 3rd planet. It might just be a boring Earth where that one rainstorm in London didn't happen a thousand years ago, or hell, a completely identical universe to ours in every way, but I'm still curious nonetheless.
8855472 Fluttershy sings a song of the horrors of nature as the Everfree monsters in the background do a dance number that revolves around them eating various cast members.
8856868
It's just as well that they're stopping the random probe approach. Sooner or later, they'd have dropped a probe into a universe where someone has the technology--or the magical power, or both--to notice an automated interloper coming in from one of the universes next door. And they're going to be curious enough to follow it back to its place of origin. Or hungry enough. I find myself wondering what would happen if they accidentally attracted the attention of something like Charles Stross Jotun Infovore, or Clive Barker's Iad Ouroboros. Or even the Reapers of Mass Effect.
Another Nightmare Moon would be bad enough.
Edit: if they really DID pop up in the middle of the XCOM universe, that might already have happened. In which case, God help them all.
Ah, sorry about your order; good luck with that.
8856924
delay between universes? They're looking for a multiverse address, not physical one.
8856914 A few of them did have the magical power and/or tech to notice. Fortunately, only one was interested enough to investigate, accidentally erasing the return protocols in the process, while the other two or three just destroyed the probe.
And in a little town called "South Park"...
thedroidyourelookingfor.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/pinkeye01.gif
"OH MY GOD, PONIES KILLED KENNY!"
Alondro jots this world's dimensional location down under his "Worlds Saitama Should Visit" column.
Alondro sighs and adds another locale to the column, "He's going to be PO'd at me... I'll need to buy extra groceries for him this week."
I do like how Cherry Berry is able to diplomatically say, "Stop wasting my time with nonsense."
Serious question, does any of that still matter? I mean, I get that they're still maintaining joint operations in the spirit of mutual good will, but I wouldn't think the CSP is actually doing much these days. The technology they're using is almost universally Equestrian at this point (ESA ships, ESA thrusters, ESA drives, ESA computers, etc.), and the ESA always had more money than the CSP. Also most of the CSP workforce is unskilled manual labor, rather than trained technicians that would stack up to their ESA counterparts, so I don't imagine there's much demand for them at the ESA.
I know where all the magic is...
There's this evil company called Monsanto that stole it all to create toxic corn to kill all the honeybees for their alien Illuminati masters who have to get rid of bees before they can infect us all with thetans for their cosmic warlord Xenu.
The various Equus space agencies must have really upped their game on radio telescopes if they're confident in not receiving anything from the fourth planet in a single trip. Of course, only three returns were covered and having a potential match, I imagine at least one of the other four were spent on a return trip to be sure.
Also... Aww... Chrissy is more stressed than shes trying to let on. Not once did she antagonize anyone for the entertainment value and the suggestion that she's not doing her share isn't just an annoyance, it's a straight-up Berserk Button.
As I recall from Chapter 1:
Surely, if the Amicitas' thrusters are capable of creating that sort of reaction, any sort of deliberate spell that could be detected by the ESA would have to have a similar (if not worse?) reaction, no? The sorts of spells Starlight has been doing, even her more powerful ones, just don't use enough magic to have had any noticible effects.
Hopefully whatever detectable spell they concoct doesn't end up doing something crazy like pull Phobos from the sky, or cause a sattelite to crash into the Hab, or make another super dust storm to rival that of Sol 6.
So... Earth has the electrical power (Hoover Dam, 4 billion killowatt/hours a year) and the crackpot theory now to turn electricity into magic. All they need is a spark. A Heterodyne type of spark, that is.
"So you want to do what again?" The Hoover Power and Light project coordinator looked at the sheet of paper supposedly signed by the president, then the five truckloads of equipment that the JPL was wiring into the step-up transformers on this side of the transmission lines with cables the size of anchor chains.
"It's a beacon," explained the technician again. "One big, gargantuan, titanic beacon able to broadcast on the magical frequency that the Equestrians are listening on." A small smile escaped his serious expression. "Once this baby hits eighty-eight gigawats, you're going to see some serious shit."
"OH! This is for the ponies," said the coordinator. "You should have said that first. I hope they visit the facility when they get off Mars. Ahhh... That's not going to be dangerous?" he added, looking at the two prongs sticking up out of the ongoing construction, much like a Jacob's Ladder in a Frankenstein movie.
"Naa," scoffed the technician, pulling out a pair of digital key drives with album covers embossed on the tags. "The biggest difficulty we've got is trying to figure out what pattern file to use for the beacon, so we're taking a vote. What do you think, Back in Black or It's a Long Way To The Top?"
8856935
ok that would be funny as hell if that happens and the ponies hear that
8856981
AC/DC? Yes please.
And in a thousand adjacent universes, the first contact the locals have with alien life is a vicious guitar-and-bagpipe riff blasting through the aether from the place between dimensions at about 220 dB, loud enough that even the dead can hear it.
8856944 Amicitas Flight Three lifted off the pad on CSP boosters. The rescue ship, and indeed Angels 3 through 7, were mostly built from CSP components. And, of course, half the manpower (so to speak) is CSP.
8857016 You've got it wrong way round. If you're hearing 220 dB, you're dead.
8856981
Do you WANT the world to be taken over by oversized watches? You could've chosen almost any other spark line, but noooo, it had to be the Heterodyne line.
8857073
Technically, you would liquefy probably before your neurons could relay the signal that anything hit your eardrum.
What is the speed of sound/compressibility through grey matter, and would such a shockwave exceed the energy level of a sound pressure wave of 220dB?
We must know: For S C I E N C E !
8856949
Shhh....
That's supposed to be a secret.
8857136
well... the dlc show there was an other ship.... sooo maybe?
8856887
Twilight Twinkle is also apparently from the gen 3 toyline
http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/Twilight_Twinkle
8856981
I bet you that if word got out las vegas would close all the lights and more and go to the hoover dam to see the light show of the beacon.
No video games and more as everyone in that area put all the energy to that one thing
8857073
8856973
If we already have a higher dimensional vector to follow, then the process of finding them is relatively simple, although it will require a few more probes if the mortality rate for them is that high. It basically comes down to something called a binary search. First they figure out the maximum distance it could have traveled with the power in its batteries. After jumping, they check to see if the upper dimensional compas that is telling them "They are that way" is pointed in the same fifth direction, or backwards and is between jump A and their Equestria. After finding that out, you either jump half way to max range or back home. If they had used the previous probes in such a way, even just using 13 data points, they would have reduced their search size to one part out of 8192. Do it enough times and you will have quite a reduced search area.
That doesn't make sense. They already know the straight line direction through n-dimensional space from Equestria to Mars. Having Starlight broadcast from Mars doesn't help because it only gives them the direction that they already know. If they're going to triangulate, then they'd want a broadcast point somewhere else. For that matter, which direction that "somewhere else" is in, shouldn't matter. All they need is a triangle. It doesn't matter which spatial dimensions that triangle occupies. They should be able to simply send a probe out an appropriate distance in their native space and transmit from there. That would give them two straight lines to Mars, which plus the distance from Equus to their probe in native space, would be enough information to determine distance.
8856964
Or wake up Mars...
8856981
dude! That would be awesome! AC/DC for the win!
Would that even work though?
I think I see your problem. They're all named after Fluttershy's demon bunny.
And that's how Equestria was made!
Well, clearly the Purnell maneuver is going to do double duty in this story.
But I'm interested in Twilight's use of "triangulate." I think of triangulation as getting a direction from two (or more) sufficiently separated points. (Whereas combining one distance at a time with one direction at a time is "dead reckoning.") I might need to look that (those) up again.
But anyway, that word quite immediately suggested the Equestria Girls universe could get involved.
8857261
Our "angel" is from a Latin word meaning "messenger." I don't know why it keeps showing up in the show, but I'm curious what Kris declares on the subject.
8857073
Looking back, I overestimated the power of the magic thrusters on Amacitas. I read that they could let the Amacitas hover; what it actually said was that they could let it hover on Mars, which means their performance hasn't improved much since the start of CSP. Then again, Twilight made them, so I shouldn't be surprised at how limited they are.
It still baffles me that magic can cross interplanetary distances in a day, but it still can't get a ship off the ground.
You know Amiticias' crew is stranded in a magicless universe, yet you are sending probes which stop working without ambiental magic?
They are SO lucky that none of their probes ended up in Jordan179's Shadowverse.
Is it just me, or are Amicitas and Baltimare not on the same page?
8857307 It's not magicless, there's clearly SOME. It's just that the background magic is zero.
The biggest wonder here is how Equestrians managed to get off the ground at all. The more we see of them the less competent they seem
8857381
I agree, sadly the ponies with their superiority complex are making things unviable in the programs. First they try to kill the changeling program, then their Moon thieving Princess sets up condition and now they have somehow strong-armed changelings to let them in a joint space flight with ESA to planet their moon thief of a Princess promised for the Changelings alone as recompense.
And then their fancy magic engine fails since their oh so great book horse did not run enough testing before committing ASTRONAUT LIVES to it and now some of the leaders of the ESA have the temerity to question what Changelings are bringing to the table? They are there because Chrysalis carried them there, and they would not be in the said mess if all would merely bow down to her Majesty.
I mean seriously, only reason Chrysalis tolerates these ponies must be because they are intergral part of her diet. The ungrateful louts.
8857307
Not quite. Earth verse has magic but no universal magic field and they can return from universes like that just fine. It's just that some universes don't just lack a universal magic field, magic is just flat out not part of their laws of physics. No matter what they do, they cannot get the drive to work there because the principles it operates on just don't exist there.
8857295
If you have a thruster with half a G acceleration, you will never leave the surface of earth with it. (and barely able to rise on Mars)
But if you can run that same half G thruster for a day in space (orbit around earth), you have 86400 second for acceleration, so your speed will be over 400 km/s; over one thousandth of the speed of light. The average distance between Earth and Mars is around 200 million kilometers so with this speed we need half a million seconds or around 6 days.
That half G continuous thruster which cannot lunch from Earth surface would go to Mars in a week including acceleration and deceleration.
They're lucky one of the probes didn't end up in a FiO universe. Celest-AI would have been all over it. How would it resolve 'satisfying human vaules with Friendship and Ponies' when she actually finds a universe of real ponies? I don't know, but I doubt it would be good for CSP Equestria or Martian Earth.