https://www.fimfiction.net/story/421779/79/voyage-of-the-equinox/chapter-79#comment/958154481544 Though there were many high rated comments with similar sentiments to this one.
Through Twilight’s confusion, one truth surface before all the others. She might be somewhere strange; she might be light-years away from home and ignorant of the state of Equestria. But that didn’t mean all her knowledge and experience was suddenly invalid.
She knew dark magic. Anything that could’ve done permanent damage to her friends would have done something serious to their bodies as well. The fact that they were undamaged guaranteed that this situation was different. They aren’t waking up, that means their minds have gone somewhere.
She’d assumed when Apple Bloom described the Contingency and the city inside it, that it contained compactified space, or some nonmagical equivalent. Maybe the reason it took so little energy and the reason her friends’ bodies were intact were the same.
She would’ve called the Equinox for help, but they still hadn’t answered. She would have to decide for herself.
The first part of her task was easy: load everypony into the Prospector as carefully as she could. There was no way she’d be able to individually levitate them, or anything else so convenient. But so far as she could tell, they were still alive, or at least their basic systems were still functioning.
It took a few hours, where Twilight was increasingly dragging her hooves as her days without sleep finally caught up to her. She couldn’t keep going forever, and eventually she had to curl up in the corner of the prospector and close her eyes.
She woke a few hours later, to panicked shouting from nearby. Twilight sat up, groaning and rubbing her eyes. A glance around the Prospector’s cargo bay told her exactly what she’d feared—nopony had woken up. The shouting was coming from her portable radio.
Twilight levitated it up, squinting down at the screen. It was connected to the prospector’s antenna, using the general channel.
It was Fluttershy’s voice, desperate and afraid. “Twilight, are you there? Twilight?”
She nodded reflexively, even though she knew Fluttershy wouldn’t be able to hear her. “Fluttershy? What’s going on?”
Fluttershy was on the edge of tears. “We’re moving. I didn’t know why, but…”
Spike’s voice joined her in the background. No mystery about how that might be, since they’d both been in medical. “It’s not much of a push. Navigational thrusters, burning hydrogen. But it feels like it’s down towards the planet.”
Oh buck. With only the auxiliary reactors, there wasn’t a chance in Tartarus of going anywhere with the Equinox. The navigational thrusters wouldn’t even be enough to escape the planet’s gravity. But there was something they could do: destabilize their orbit.
Twilight ran the numbers in her head, or tried. She couldn’t remember the exact height of the Equinox, or the precise velocity it had been traveling. They’d taken an extremely conservative orbit, since they knew it might be months before they flew again, and extensive repairs would be needed. “Let me see… whoever’s doing that will have to shut them down every few seconds to stop the nozzles from overheating.” They weren’t likely to run out of hydrogen before they ran out of orbit.
“You have at least three days,” Twilight said, her voice panicked. “We were going fast, and those thrusters weren’t made for major corrections. If they fire too fast, the nozzles will melt, and your problem will be over.”
“There’s something else,” Spike added. “We’re losing access to the computers, one system at a time. But once we started moving, I went right to cryogenics to check. That was the first sector to go non-responsive."
Has Cozy Glow been biding her time, and finally takes control of the Equinox? Yes.
Buck, who else could it be? They didn’t leave her in suspense, in any case. Cozy Glow’s voice came over the radio, as sickly sweet as she remembered. She must be suffering terribly from cryosickness, but she managed to conceal it. “This mission is over now, Twilight. I wanted it to be peaceful. We could’ve made an agreement never to leave system and lived our lives here. But now I know I can’t trust you. I’m taking permanent measures.”
Twilight took her magic off the transmission button, then swore under her breath. “Cozy Glow, listen to me. Your information is out of date. Since the last time you were awake, we’ve run into ponies from a second mission into the system. Something already happened in Equestria. They might need our help desperately.”
Cozy giggled. If she heard the gravity of what Twilight had said, she didn’t care. “There are no other ships in the system. If they really did come here, I don’t need to worry about them getting away. Don’t worry, I’ll let the escape pod launch as soon as our orbit decays beyond recovery. Unless I see somepony coming, that is. I’ve already locked your crew into the medical bay. If I see that prospector come anywhere near me, say goodbye to their air!” The line clicked.
Okay so maybe… my first plan didn’t go quite the way I thought. Twilight sat back, glancing around at her cargo bay of motionless ponies. She had already wired each of the organics into the medical system, to alert her if anything went seriously wrong. Nothing had, though they’d need to go onto life support soon. She had already given each of them water, but eventually they’d start to starve.
If there was one thing Twilight knew, it was that she needed help. Cozy Glow’s appearance might’ve been unexpected, but it also gave her a definite enemy. With a surge of adrenaline came the resolve to keep fighting.
[All options are dangerous]
1. Use her long relationship with Spike to work out a covert way to contact him and coach him through retaking the Equinox from the inside.
2. Violate Cozy’s injunction and try to board the Equinox using a low-altitude teleport.
3. Investigate the Contingency to attempt to free one or more crew-members first.
4. Go inside and see if the Memorial’s defenses can be turned against the Equinox.
(Certainty 230 required)
Well... crap.
I fully expect single dice roll deaths for these options, as they are set to dangerous and all it would take would be Is cozy glow bluffing? No for it to be game over for the first two options.
I think option 3 has the best potential, but again, it would probably come down to whether or not twilight gets pulled in or can get back out. Option 4 I feel runs the risk of destroying the Equinox, or just having nothing at all.
I feel that the most important thing to keep in mind is that we have an approximate timeline of three in-story days, and as such the more extreme options (1, 2, and 4,) should be held off on for the moment.
Well, at least Cozy didn't just explode the ship. That was what I imagined would happen, but it's good that it didn't. Trying to sneak aboard with the Prospector is too dangerous and there's no way in hell Twilight should fire at the ship while her friends and really important tools to survive and explore are on it. Can't see why she wouldn't investigate the Contingency and coach Spike at the same time, but since Cozy is the more immediate threat, I choose option 1.
Moving on: I want us to be prepared for if we ever get another chance to do this comments thing like before. I really want to try and communicate with Twilight somehow. If we ever get that chance, there's a few rules I'd prefer you all follow: state your name at the beginning of your comment; don't fabricate identities or false facts; and keep jokes to a minimum. The first is because Twilight would have difficulty understanding us if we don't organize ourselves, the second is because we want her to trust us, and the third is because we want to minimize how much information she has to sort through. There's a fourth rule about not saying anything that someone else hasn't already said, but if comments are chosen based on number of likes, that won't matter.
I have experience talking to a Twilight from the comment section, and I want to prepare all of you for that as well. I know I've said strange things in the past and have a tendency to talk a lot, but I am going to be completely serious from now on. I'd like to be trusted here.
How the bloody heck did the crazy get out of the cryo without help? You need medical attention after waking up.
Cozy needs to die now
How the fuck did she manage to get out of cryo sleep and be functional? Filly's dangerous. Really, really dangerous. This time they should just rip her head off and be done with it. Hell, when she attacked them the first time she should've been killed. But ponies gotta pone, in the end.
Anyway, let's trust Spike. Twilight's magic is waaay too depleted to rely on it now.
How?
No, seriously, how!?
Logistics of this predicament aside, they do have a few days. There's a bit of a time cushion, enough to try to recover some lost ponies.
Also, HOW!?
How the hell did Crazy Glue get out of cryo?
She had her chances, if we manage to capture her, she's going straight out the airlock.
I vote option three, but I have some worries about it being the 'least-worst' scenario.
My main worry is that Contingency is more of a Matrix-type virtual world simulation. How does time flow inside, as compared to outside? Can anyone find a way out? IS there a way out, or all the entry paths diode-protected?
Here's hoping. "crosses fingers, toes, hooves, ears, wings, etc, while fervently imploring (insert favorite deity here) for help"
...well fuck. This is the last thing we needed. If we regain control of Equinox, Cozy's time is up. I regret not voting to space her earlier.
Option 2 seems dangerous and option 4 seems like it might destroy the ship, which defeats the purpose.
Spike's been on the Equinox longer than anyone. I trust him to take it back.
Okay, how in the absolute F U C K did Cozy get out of cryo?! Don't you need external assistance to get out of there?!
As for the options, I'd say we better attempt to get some more crew members back before we go off to strangle Cozy with her own guts, so option 3
This honestly feels like something of a cop-out. There shouldn't be any way for Cozy to get out of cryo suspension, and further being actually functional instead of bedridden. Nor being able to mysteriously take over the whole ship, for that matter. Everything about this situation feels contrived.
9587839
That's the power of a random event. What Applebot's rolls decree, I am powerless to stop.
9587872
Random events should at least have reduced chance or modifiers to what is happening based on how we dealt with possible causes. Cozy was frozen, she shouldn’t have been able to hide on a ship with more than a dragon that was hibernating. And I am not buying her doing it when they were passed out from exhaustion, we saw how the crew, even Alicorn like Twilight or sturdy Earth Pony like AJ reacted to being woken up from freeze. And it was proper wake up, with help. The only chance of cozy waking up would be if the pod malfunctioned or so, and that would be even rougher. She should have at least sounded half dead through radio.
While dice might cause an event, the events themselves should be modified by things relevant to them
9587839
I kinda know what you mean. The only logical explanations I can come up with, is that she actually escaped sooner, like when the Equinox was damaged and the crew had to stay on the planet. She's proven to be good at hiding prior to this, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise she could have been biding her time. I do agree it's a big cop-out if Cozy did all this and it isn't revealed how she got out of cryo-stasis without help. The only explanations for that being there was someone else on the vessel, who potentially caused the damages to the equinox, which made the repairs necessary, and gave them time to rescue Cozy? Or she thawed out on her own, but then how did she not suffer some severe or crippling injuries?
9587905
It hasn't been revealed yet, but in actuality she escaped the very second the Equinox was radiation-free. The random event said that she had a backup program in place in the cryo bay in the event that she was captured and frozen. But because the conditions would've killed her with that much radiation on the ship, the program waited until the ship was safe.
She has had weeks or possibly months up there to plan this.
And of course anyone who doubts me can look in the Equinox room in my discord and see the rolls for themselves. This random event happened months ago, but Cozy has been biding her time since then.
9587872
Well... That's not really true... it depends in an ABSOLUTE way on HOW the question are posed to Applebot. And some of those are getting ludicrous....
This is stupid, there's proof positive of another mission to the system (Sunset Shimmer) in the Medical bay, which Cozy would know of if she was biding her time up there this entire time.
9587919
I find myself wondering how long she had to go without food. In a very weakened state. In particular if she was avoiding the radiation.
Of course, I also wonder what kind of program she could have possibly set up not knowing what pod she was going into necessarily. I would guess she could have done it to multiple pods? That somehow can tell by the readings that it's her? Like by her weight or something?
Don't have a lot of time right now so I'm going to just copy and paste what I put in the Discord.
Twilight fiddling with the orb could theoretically end her and take any help they had away, or eat more time than expected. Meanwhile teleporting this way and violating the guidelines given may end the others or Twilight if her teleport goes askew.
I think Spike is the only real option. Physically tough, an engineer himself, very familiar with the equinox, and sneaky coms with Twilight. Plus Cozy probably already thinks she handled them. An unexpected exit via some vent or maintenance hatch could be just the surprise to catch her early. He may even be able to free Fluttershy and Sunset. Though their assistance may be nil.
Ok trying to get some of the others out of the contingency could very well take too long and cozy glow would likely be expecting her to teleport in to save the day, especially since she would have to wait till the last second to even do it, so I'm really only seeing two viable options here. Either:
A.) Covertly contact spike and give him directions on how to take back the ship. Cozy glow might be smart and have some power, but one thing anyone who's played D&D, pathfinder etc. Would know is that one absolutely DOES NOT piss off a moderate to large dragon or drake when you're alone as you are crunchy and taste good.
Or
B) Destroy the equonox and all aboard. Will it mean losing several friends? Yes but better to go out in a blaze of glory than a slow fade.
Personally I prefer A.
God. Dammit.
The team never gets a break, do they?
I do have a few... quibbles about the way this quest is structured.
Kudos to Starscribe for writing something that can get us so emotionally-invested in the fate of the crew. There have been so many cases of nail-biting tension in this series, it's almost exhausting. I feel like I'm one of the few people here who realizes we're playing Tomb of Horrors, while everyone else is voting like they're the landing party in Prometheus. I have actually checked the results for a poll on this series more than once and started screaming. Not internal screaming, either. Just... screaming. With my lungs and air and everything. It's not a pretty sight. That damn GM simulator you're using is the devil incarnate, or a nascent Skynet or something. We've had more random encounters at this point than in the Dreamcast version of Skies of Arcadia.
*walks two feet*
*screen shatters*
*battle theme plays*
Crap.
Let's get dangerous. Wait, everything is dangerous. 1, I suppose. 2 would involve Twilight teleporting and that's a dangerous action for her, 3 is giving up on the Equinox to potentially trap Twilight in a virtual realm of some variety, and 4 reads like giving up on the ship and Spike and Fluttershy. 1 is the least worst option in my opinion.
9587934
Actually, it was there, some of us saw it, and worse ...
I realized today that when we had the chance to use insight, no one mentioned the idea of double checking on Cozy Glow.
For months, no one has bothered to check on her.
We've known that she somehow managed to get on the ship, hide herself, etc.
We should have suspected that she had done something to the computer systems (we do NOT control them anymore, they have been hacked/altered and can be assumed to be under the control of her / her sponsor).
She's shown that she can hide. And with only a skeleton crew, hiding was easy enough.
Welp. Looks like Cozy Glow put a trojan on the cryo computer. But then how did she know 1) she would fail and 2) she'd get put back into cryo instead of spaced or shoved into an escape pod? And what would have happened if somepony else went into cryo first? Oh well. That's for Starscribe to figure out.
2 would be difficult under normal circumstances, but given that the navigational thrusters are constantly flipping on and off, there's a near 100% chance Twilight ends up teleporting inside of a wall, or worse, missing her target entirely.
3 is a waste of oh-so-precious time, and 4 is friendly fire. But, if she just fires warning shots, Cozy may just get the heck out of there. (Or she may vent the ship first.)
So I guess that's 1 by default. Unless she finds some way to know when Cozy is asleep.
I THOUGHT WE TOOK CARE OF HER!
9588731
Spies and engineers of a certain quality both tend to plan quite a bit for as many contingencies as possible.
In other words she didn't know, she was just ready.
Anyway, I'm actually against killing her... if we can capture her non lethally and nobody else dies or anything. If we get our crew back to functioning then we have plenty of ponies to watch her (just not mechanical ones she'd hijack) and Twi mind powers to ensure she's kept honest. Another pair of hooves, you know. And a bit of mercy, et cetera, pony values.
All else fails we could use her as a test monkey when trying to get the rest of the crew back >.>
HOW?! WE HAD HER UNCONSCIOUS! SHE WAS FROZEN! SHE'D BE SICK IF SHE WOKE UP! FUCKING HOW?!
We still have days. Get inside the Contingency, haul Rainbow out of there, and sick her on Cozy!
9588804
Going into the contingency now might wind up taking longer than she has time to save the Equinox.
The better course of action would be to work with Spike to come up with a plan from the inside. Plus it might give us more chapters from Spike's point of view.
We need (or rather should have) Dash before we try to retake the ship. This sort of thing is kind of her expertise.
9587684
I am not at all convinced of your idea, but I'd be willing to play along. What I'm not willing to do, unless I'm convinced otherwise, is buy the idea that Spike and Twilight can covertly communicate while Spike is locked in the medical bay and Cozy Glow has full control of the ship's systems. I can believe they can use their relationship to slip a bit of critical information by Cozy in open communication; my sticking point is that Spike could set up a more secure channel with what he has in medbay while Cozy can probably monitor them, or alternatively that Cozy wouldn't wise up if they tried to do all their plotting in code.
In other words, if the option was for Twilight to try to slip Spike secret orders on an open channel, I would probably say to go for it. But that's not what the option limits itself to. It also says that the secret orders are to set up a separate, undetected line of communications through which she will "coach" Spike.
They should have put an padlock on her pod.
Me: Whatever we do, we must make sure it isn't something dangerous; the situation is stressed enough already.
Me: Buck.
...
I believe the Contingency has the greates chance of success.
Hopefully they will find a way afterwards to free their ship.
Cozy is willfully ignorant of the ponies she's trapped in medical. If she but glanced, she'd discover a new addition to the crew...
Once we find you, Cozy, your mission will be over. We were hoping for a peaceful solution, but it is more than clear we can't trust you. We will have to take more permanent measures.
As for the options on this chapter, I'm not yet sure what's best. Though I will point out that if Twilight gets on the ship, it might put her in range to use insight on Cozy, to counter any of the trickery and subterfuge she relies so heavily on.
It has to be 1 twighlight needs rest first. And literally nothing else has a solid chance of succeeding. And besides are we still assuming spike can't send her letters and have them returned by fire breath that's a no brainier.????
How about 5) Prove there's more ponies.
Cozy has the crew records. Twilight has Sunset Shimmer in a bed in bad shape.
One is not in the other.
9589577
Yeah! Whatever happened to that? (My guess is that it got replaced with something more high tech when the universe got converted to sci-fi. Key word "replaced" as in "something equal or better takes its place.")
Well if that's the method they're using, then getting info past Cozy is the easy part. There's still the whole "friends held hostage aboard ship" bit, but hey, one step at a time.
Gave this chapter's choice some thought. Here's my idea:
Currently favoring the low-altitude teleport idea to get Twilight close enough to insight Cozy. (If she does turn off life support in medical there's no way they don't have a few O2 tanks lying around) But we have a few days before the ship fully deorbits. I think our odds of overthrowing Cozy will be better if we use that time to attempt to get more allies out of the Contingency first. Voting Contingency. It's a longshot, but so is everything else.
Well Cozy Glow is already trying to kill the Equinox. She probably isn't to afraid of causing collateral damage by setting traps. So it's probably unwise to send Spike into the meat grinder. Probably would want Rainbow Dash for that.
Twilight is running on fumes again and space exposes her to things unknown. Probably unwise for her to try to engage Cozy Glow with a teleport up there.
Checking the Contingency with her know how and powers might give her a team to work out the problem. But it could cause more harm then good trying to get them out.
Then their's using the Memorials defenses being turned against the Equinox... I'm not sure if that would really work. Do those robots have flight capability? If not, at the very least it would settle the bot problem the base is having. but it really doesn't stop the Equinox.
I think I'll go with checking the Contingency. It could get Twilight a team. And who knows, it might have a connection with the robots attacking right now to make it possible to make them chill too.
9588446
Hey... Remember when we used the computer system to cyber birth node? Isn't it strange how activly distant node has managed to be????? I'm not saying she is a threat but she has NOT been grateful or valuable. Yes she is the definition of why they set off for this mission but even so. Why hasn't she been WAY more informative? If it hasn't been intentionally vague, then she has glows virus.
9584573
Do you know da wae.