First Contact. It was all over the news, how could it not be? A station could be heard, if one tuned into the right AM station. It played on repeat. It came from outside this world. Was it in peace? What did it mean?
Done entirely on whimsy, though I can blame the folks in #writing-chat on the Fimfic Discord.
Join the special community of folks who like my stories and/or get your own here at Patreon!
Don't want to do an ongoing thing? You could buy me a coffee
Join my discord to chat!
Chapters (21)
Will the ponies recognize them as humans I wonder.
11890848
As humans as in recognizing what a human is by default? That would be odd. They will, one hopes, quickly recognize them as a sapient critter worth trying to say hi to though!
An orbit to surfa\ce to orbit sampling scout probe thats teh size of a football? Youd be lucky if that thing had a fusion power plant on board. Easier might just be a quantum entangled power link, as the only other compact energy sources theoretically possible might be light fission due to its near zero size criticality and dilithium class antimatter reactions. Im not sure on what neutrinos are emmited for light fission cos there sure aint anything else detectable to our current understanding.
But still, the most important thing to remember is. These guys have FTL. They have rocks. They make a rock FTL in our general direction and we Will have a Very Bad Day.
They have ALL the rocks.
The ponies should try to contact the earth horses first. They have got to be the dominate life form, not those silly monkeys.
Boster Spice: If the pony tech is magic based you can toss your speculative human physics out the air lock, but throwing rocks should still be valid.
Yay more Sci-Fi always a treat when you post.
11890851
Well at least Twilight has seen humans, though the proportions and skin colors will throw her off.
11890853
Quantum entanglement doesn't send any energy and I'd imagine they use magic or just an antimatter battery.
Don't really understand what you're referring to with 'light fission' or it being more efficient (in terms of volume to enthalpy) than fusion. Could you elaborate?
The type of ftl described wouldn't be all that destructive as it's either warping space(which would have interesting radiation emissions in the direction it's traveling), or some dimension traveling system which wouldn't be all that harmful.
Clearly the ponies are looking for advanced life.
Mam, good morning? Our princess and savior would like to have a good word with you. Also those are some nice resources you have and a nice planet. Shame if anything were to happen to it.
I see Twilight follows the Starfleet Prime Directive
*Iron Will pops out of the FTL spacecraft...*
"If you happen to meet an exorcist,
Make sure their head meets-your-fist!"
Well, this looks interesting, I've actually been wanting to see a story like this, so I'm very excited to see what comes next.
11890860
As long as they don't think cars are the dominant life form on Earth, things should be fine. From Hitchhiker's Guide:
The joke that a lot of people don't get is that the Ford Prefect was a British car, only made from 1938 to 1961, which was never released in the US. (Apparently in some translations he was renamed Ford Escort.)
11890912
Long ago, scientists found out that by banging rocks together, they could get more concentrated forms of heat out. these rocks got ever smaller until they were banging induvidual atoms together. The most cmmon used these days are heavy atoms and neutrons, heavy fission, but they also disccovered hitting lighter atoms with protons could also make them fission, lithium to two helium and boron to three helium. the problem is if you try doing the boron proton reaction in a fusion diesel engine, its about 6000 times worse return for given conditions than for Deuterium Tritium.
If you put a boron atom in say a buckyball chamber, to hold it still, and guide a proton of high enough energy into it, the reaction area is many times larger than the physical size of the nucleus, and vastly larger than the wavelength of the proton? Tiny power sources for tiny power requirements.
Ponds and Fleischmann were so bad, they couldnt even sell their design as an electric water heater.
So, some Humans are obviously not fans of the existence of aliens, that was to be expected. With someone like Pope Francis in charge, at least the Catholics will be pretty friendly.
Hopefully.
This has my attention.
Good thinking Cindy. Lord knows it ended pretty horribly when bird met Martian.
four?
IDK is it an AU thing? Earth doesn't have four moons...
I have to laugh at this being AM radio based when most people no longer own equipment that's able to pick up more than one or two AM radio stations in a comprehensible quality and that's under good conditions.
Meanwhile you can't hardly find a spot on a FM radio where you can't hear something.
11890851
Really depends on if EQG is canon to this AU or not, possibly also if lyra was included.
11890853
Magic.
11891303
One of the ways Ponies measure time is in "moons." One "moon" is one lunar cycle.
11891315
Oh neat, I haven't seen that before.
Typo, third paragraph. Should be plane instead of plain.
Yay!
To be fair, that does sound like something ponies would do.
Watch out! There is one still hiding!
"Most of those wound lovely."
11891457
11891467
Typos eliminated. We had all these bullets we didn't put in horses at the ready.
Yup, shows how little experience humans have in free fall if the first reponse is to brin out something that not only cuases rapid hull faliure and explosive decompression, but also has enoug recoil to spear the equipment frame behind you through your suit. Knives, whips, even a bolas can crack a spacesuit visor, more obscure are Gyrojets, effectively handmoarter rocket shells, or esoteric recoiless shotguns.
Thre are many stories about various first contacts etc, and they seem to be Scout, Teenage Joyride, lost young, and invading battlefleet.
Three out of 4 times you think you dealt with the problem, only for the Actual problem to arrive shorty after in a Very unhappy move.
The other quarter the time, they dont bother with the niceties and the first you know about it is between 1 and ten thousand city killing rocks hitting the surface out of nowhere. Or worse.
Did Fluttershy give that soldier the "Stare"? I hope they loaded their guns with soft bullets that go splat when they hit a bulkhead and not ricochet. Which of the humans is doing the video livestream for everyone back on Earth?
11891650
She used the deadly technique of approaching slowly and saying nice things.
11891369
It is mentioned, I believe, in the first Equestria Girls movie. The Mirror Portal only opens every 30 moons. Twilight figures out a way around it.
I like the ideas on display here, but I wish they had a little more time to cook. The sporadic nature as it jumps between 4 different POVs leaves me with more questions than answers. Like who else is on the ship with Twilight and I’m assuming the rest of the mane 6, Starlight, and Celestia. Why are they even out there. What was the point of the church sermon in relation to the story? That lady is super lassie faire with the whole prob situation, if it was me I would have lost my mind and be making trips regularly to Jellyfish park in hopes of seeing something alien again.
Another fascinating new story, dude. Congrats on getting Featured again.
I found one typo, in this chapter's 4th paragraph: "sattelite" should be "satellite."
For those that don't know: Photon drives are a real thing, but they are very much not subtle. They run at a power level of three hundred megawatts per newton of thrust.
That lead military guy ruffles my feathers with his demands - as was your intent. Glad there is a mix of civilian scientist and spacejock in the team.
Fluttershy was a good choice for First Contact.
11891759
Different people react in different ways.
11891780
Fixed!
11891978
Truth is always stranger than fiction hm?
Great story. Keep it up.
Pretty sure this is meant to say Equish, in this context.
And why are military people in these kinds of stories always stupid? I am not talking about being suspicious, I am talking about being as rude, intimidating and aggressive as possible. Considering that they believe the aliens might be hostile, that is really not going to help matters.
I think you meant hoof not hand, or maybe wing tip?
I feel sorry for that poor Commander the aliens are not playing by the rules.😂
11892100
We're still learning the anatomy of these aliens. Mistakes will happen.
11892083
No, she was translating English to her language. She doesn't need to translate Equish for herself, as she understands that quite well.
It is almost impossible for a virus to jump from human to alien or vice versa. What you would have to worry about would be things like the microbiome. Something like mites off the wings of a pegasus, or bacteria that create toxic compounds.
Interesting, I do like what I see, but some of this feels a bit forced, like the soldiers all being extremely hostile and convinced things are going to go bad, all scientists being completely convinced the aliens are harmless, and the preacher being so rabid.
Still love the general setup and characterization.
The chapters are pretty short, unfortunately, but at least the come up often.
Interested to see how this develops.
11892160
I don't think they mentioned virii. You are right that they tend to be super focused, usually, by design. Unlikely they'll find a pony cell interesting, or vice versa.
11892200
Would zipping over to watch a preacher give a perfectly normal sermon to people who nodded along be at all interesting? Would that be good storytelling? There are people not reacting powerfully, but we're not interested in them. They're boring.
Trouble is, no matter what you try, the Preacher and Flock have decided there will be deaths, even if they have to martyr themselves to proove it.
I wonder how far Twilight can teleport herself or others in this region , and just how Pinkie.
And given Spikes not been mentioned at all so far, is he hanging out in a hoodie with Lyra?
Oops. Forgot. Some of use remember the last time TV showed aliens arriving freindly, happy to help etcetc.
They found us Delicious.
V.
Of course some preacher will automatically call them demons, if actual Angels showed up the preachers would shout "Demon!" And try to kill them. Hopefully cooler and saner heads prevail.
11892220
It's funny how anyone not familiar with the characters would think that's an incomplete sentence.
I wonder when a pony will be given belly rubz .....or if a pony will fall in love with a human? Would it be welcome or would it be bestiality?
This is an interesting perspective playing out here.
Looking forward to seeing how it plays out, though hopefully this isn't running the dark side of possibilities, staying to the overcoming misunderstandings and working out side.
However, it is always disappointing to see the typical caricature of false Christianity used as representative like this.
This presentation is entirely a cult mentality that can be translated fairly easily to any other human group that thinks themselves superior to everyone else.
It is not even remotely in line with the real thing.
At the same time, I can understand how the confusion for the uninformed do not know how to distinguish what the false church is when compared with the true Church.
It is fairly easy to recognize, once you have seen the difference.
Love God as foremost, and equally important is love your neighbor as yourself.
Love your enemy, pray for those that persecute you, do good for them that spitefully use you.
The entire point of Christianity and the Bible is in two lines (in the Book of Matthew, in fact), which confounds people that never gave it any thought or were simply never told.
Wherever this simple aspect is violated, only two things are possible.
Either they are prideful, lying wolves pretending to be sheep...
Or they are new in their walk and haven't matured and have yet to learn how to put down the old foolishness that is required of all who enter in.
11892396
These are American priests. They have made these mistakes, in the past, the present, and likely the future. It happens. I don't claim to portray all of any religion. I am quite unqualified.
11892410
I understand what you mean, and appreciate the response.
It was more intended to point out the displayed mentality is applicable to the entire world, wherever human groups think themselves more important than others.
Socialists, Communists, and various other political groups do this par for the course all the time.
It is hardly unique to religion, and certainly not the false church, wherever it is found.
11892338
That term is one that will need updating in this situation. As it is, it is that.