“Mechanical separation of hemispheres,” said a technician, checking a bank of lights. “Shielding disengaged.”
Sehr gut, thought Schwarzwalder Fuchs to himself as he examined the counter. Even before implosion, each plutonium half responded energetically to the neutrons emitted by the other half. Responded well … perhaps too well …”
“Woops!” said Dr. Finemare. “Wow, that’s a bit hotter than we predicted!”
Smartass! flashed through the mind of the Lippanzer-Evelander expatriate. Finemare was always leaping for the spotlight. Though her constant probing at security is very useful, Fuchs allowed. If she stopped annoying Green Groves, the General might instead pay more attention to…
As if the thought had been a switch, the General himself spoke.
“Do we abort?”
Of course not, dummkopf, thought Fuchs angrily. The device can’t possibly go critical without the halves in actual contact. Always it is the stupid military who must run everything, both in Eveland and here in Amareica …
“Continue,” said Oppenhorser. “Just a small surge.”
Fuchs was not sure of Oppenhorser. His heart was in the right place, but he loved his status as a respected scientist. Even had it not been against procedure, he would not have trusted him.
But he was glad that Oppenhorser had made the right decision. Fuchs wanted the device to work. If it didn’t work; if it couldn’t work; then all his efforts had been for nothing –both those for Eveland, and those for his real masters.
Finemare and Oppenhorser started joking about burning the atmosphere. That was of course scientifically absurd: light elements couldn’t support a fission chain reaction. They were just doing it to terrify everyone in the room.
The countdown reached zero. A technician threw a switch.
For a timeless moment, everything was still.
Then something exploded invisibly inside Fuchs’ head, and the stocky ivory-coated stallion collapsed in a heap.
Given that this happened at almost the exact moment that the bunker was suddenly bathed in the light of a thousand suns, nobody noticed the unconscious scientist until the test was over.
“Dr. Fuchs … Dr. Fuchs?”
Someone was shining a light in his eyes. He opened them, blinking blearily … but there was something wrong about the motion of his eyelids. Something sluggish.
He tried to speak, to ask “What happened?”
For a moment nothing happened. Then his lips moved, and he heard himself say:
“Oh, that’s annoying.” The light switched off. “What happened to me?”
Fuchs felt a moment of sudden panic. This was not what he had meant to say!
“You fell unconscious – right at the moment the Device went off.” It was General Green Groves. He sounded concerned. “How are you feeling now?”
“Oh, just a little woozy,” came his voice calmly. “Must have fainted from all the excitement.”
Fuchs was terrified. The voice was his – and he could feel his mouth and voicebox move as he spoke – but not a single word had he spoken of his own voluntary intent! It was as if his body were a puppet, being operated by some unseen strings.
“Hmm,” grunted Green Groves. “Well, you’d better get to the infirmary, get checked up. Could be something serious.”
“Could it be some horrible unknown effect of hard radiation!” Fuchs’ voice said in a mock-spooky tone. “Or even demonic possession?”
Dr. Finemare snickered from behind Green Groves.
General Green Groves glared angrily at Finemare, then sourly at Fuchs. “Nurse Raindew!” he called.
“Yes, General?” Raindew was a cute light-pink pony, her mane a deep red, her body slim and athletic. She was known to be one of the kindest of the Army nurses attached to the Project.
Under normal circumstances, Fuchs would have welcomed a chance to spend some time under her care. Under these circumstances, he felt absolutely terrified.
“Get this joker over to the infirmary, and make sure he gets a complete physical. I want to see him kept there for at least a day. If this is some weird side effect of the Device, then I want to make sure it doesn’t spread. And if he’s just being a fool, he can have some time to think twice before wasting my time again.”
With some assistance from Finemare and Raindew, Fuchs’ body struggled shakily to its hooves. It felt strange – thoughts ran through his head without his calling upon them, muscle memories triggering, and no control over any of it from his conscious mind. It was not precisely as if his body was being worked like a puppet – more as if his brain were, with his consciousness a helpless observer during the process.
He found his body walking outside, with one mare on either side. His head swung around. He could see a huge, slowly-dissipating mass of black smoke towering miles-high into the sky from the direction of the Device.
It worked! he crowed inwardly, elation at the long-desired success momentarily-overwhelming his horror at his inability to control his own body.
Yes, looks like it did, said a sardonic Voice within his head. Wonder if you stupid ponies will use it to blast yourselves back to the Stone Age? Ah well, we can always hope …
Fuchs reeled. Or he would have, if he had been in control of his own bodily motions. Instead, his consciousness reeled inside his head. Suddenly, the part of the joke about demons didn’t seem quite as funny.
Who are you? What are you? Fuchs shouted in his own mind. Demon? No, that can’t be right, religion is the opiate of the masses. Alien? Yes, you must be some sort of alien, drawn here by the signature of the test!
Oh, so many questions, replied the Voice. Demon? Alien? That’s all a matter of perspective – or terminology -- now isn’t it? It’s not as if your concept of “aliens” is all that much closer to the truth than the concept your kind had of “demons” a few millennia ago.
You may call me – D. The Voice almost purred with amusement, like some sort of large and dangerous cat. And yes, to both your questions as to my nature. I am what you ponies would once have called a “demon” – and I’m certainly not from around here, so I’m also an “alien.” Does that put your mind at ease?
It most certainly did not. Fuchs felt his every concept of normality, of sanity – of reality itself – shake within him.
Oh no, D said. Can’t have you going mad – not yet. I need your mind all nice and … yuch … well-organized, for as long as I need to be you. Which may be for some time longer, so – be sane!
Abruptly, the shaking stopped. Fuchs was remarkably calm.
You don’t know how much I hated to do that, D continued. Driving ponies mad is more my preferred métier. But as long as I’m limited to a mere pony form … well, one makes do.
Nurse Raindew led them into the infirmary. There, she performed some preliminary checks on his heartbeat and blood pressure, had his eyes track a light, and called for a doctor.
Fuchs noticed that his body and voice were being run much better now. What’s more, the tone of his voice – which had previously sounded something like the sardonic Voice in his mind – was returning to normal. Is that D thing somehow learning to operate me?
Precisely, D said. It’s not as if your body is all that complex. Compared to some … you should see a Krell, or even a Velantian.
Why are you here? Are you spying on our planet’s atomic secrets?
D guffawed.
Spying on – oh, that’s rich. That’s hilarious. For so many reasons.
Fuchs didn’t see why the idea was funny.
And you’re supposed to be one of the brighter members of your species, D commented drily. First of all, my little Uplifted eohippus, let me assure you that your kind knows nothing about nuclear energy that would be at all useful to any race capable of traveling between the stars – even those primitive species which still need to do it in spaceships. As for weapons, in my true form I could command energies utterly-dwarfing your little rub-two-sticks-together and spark-into-tinder Device. And I could do that without the need for my equivalent of tools.
Fuchs shuddered at the implications. The alien … demon … whatever it was, might be bluffing, but then, it might be telling the truth. There was certainly no pony equivalent of whatever technique it had used to take him over, mind and body, in an instant.
Why would I even bother to lie to you? asked D. Oh, right, because it might be amusing. It must be no fun to be you right now. Glad I’m not.
The casual sadism of this statement was utterly appalling to Fuchs, the more so because he was entirely at this creature's mercy.
The second reason what you said was funny, though, is that if I had come here to spy on your quaint native arts and crafts project, I would have come here for the exact same reason that you came here. Which is probably why you thought of it. Projection – D said with dramatic mock-sadness. It’s so ugly a defense.
Fuchs was offended.
I’m watching the Project to preserve the peace! he objected. The Amareicans and Evelanders are ruled by capitalist overlords who would enslave the peace-loving ponies under the benign historic leadership of Comrade Steellion! We need the Device not to make, but to deter war – for self-defense!
Blah, blah, blah, replied D. Say it to someone who actually cares about your planet’s stupid religious wars. You’re both wrong, anyway. If you knew the real origins and purpose of your universe, you’d go mad, and as I’ve mentioned before, I need you sane … for now.
But the third reason why your projective paranoia is so funny is that you were actually right about one thing, and that one thing in particular I thought you might find it amusing to know. D stopped.
Somehow, Fuchs felt that D was waiting expectantly. But he also felt that knowing what D meant might important.
What’s the third reason? Fuchs asked.
Why I came, explained D. It’s not that your toy of a Device attracted me, it’s more that it opened the gate for me. You see, your cute little plutonium sphere released enough energy to rip a very tiny hole through spacetime between where I was – and where you are. So in a sense, you did bring me here.
D paused, and chuckled.
Just thought you’d like to know the part you’ve played in all of this, he said, in a voice dripping with insincere solicitude. Just thought that you’d like to know that you’ve helped bring about the end of your world.
D laughed. And laughed. And laughed.
And Fuchs was very sorry, now, that he couldn’t go mad.
Hmm, why do I think I know just who is sitting inside of Dr. Fuchs' head?
And I like this reference: you should see a Krell, or even a Velantian.
I know the Krell from Forbidden Planet, and I think the Velantians are one of the races from Doc Smith's Lensman series? Hmm... I bet that Discord and his relations would just love Boskone and the Eddorians from that series.
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The scientists in the real Manhattan Project were worried that the fission chain reaction might spread beyond the plutonium core, igniting either the atmosphere or the Earth itself. It seemed a very improbable outcome to them, based on known nuclear physics -- but then much less was truly known about nuclear physics at the time than is the case now.
Dr. Finemare was semi-joking. But I'm sure it passed through her mind that, if they were about to destroy the world or at least southwestern Amareica, she wouldn't be alive long enough for anyone to hold her sense of humor against her, while if they weren't, then everyone would simply remember the joke as an example of her wry wit.
Adolph Hitler, the obvious inspiration for the "Leader of Lippanzer," believed that compassion was a sign of femininity and hence weakness. He mocked those who had moral qualms as "compassion cows."
Ironically, Hitler himself not only had a strong feminine side, but when he was younger was quite capable of compassion. He viewed his hardening in World War One and subsquent ruthlessness as leader first of the Nazi Party and then of the Third Reicn as constituting the successful purging of his soul of its weaknesses. He invented and was almost consumed by the character of "The Leader" (Der Fuhrer) he had created in his quest to bring Germany world dominon.
One of the last things he did in his life -- marrying his long-time mistress Eva Braun -- was clearly done out of compassion, because she had always wanted their union to be made respectable. In other words, at the last, he wavered from his self-invented purely-masculine role as the "Leader," and did something out of ordinary human love.
Obviously, in the MLP universe, "compassion cows" might also be real animals. Possibly sapient ones, though I don't know if G2 cattle had any more intelligence than do those from our world.
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Yep, it's him. A much-weakened avatar of himself, disembodied and far below the power levels his later avatar possesses, but it's Mister Fun himself. There are some psychological hazards to the method he's chosen to act in that world, which he's about to discover. But then, he was always overconfident.
This reads like a Jim Ottaviani / Jonathan Fetter-Vorm collab, with the appropriately meandering prolixity (and exact replication of scientific jargon). The whole of the work, should one venture to be precise, could be most prodigiously described as verbose; though the chronological targets of the verbosity were chosen in a manner worthy of the loftiest of accolades, and I can only commend their election.
*Side note: I'm surprised a pony doppelganger of Leo Szilard was not incorporated. He waxed on the project's political ramifications long before any of the other scientists cognized the intricacies of their unique situation. It was the birth of "big science", after all.
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Hee hee hee ... now that was worthy of William Harper "Johnny" Littlejohn (Doc Savage series). I always loved his dialogue, because he would look for the biggest possible words with which to describe anything. I think the others on Doc's crew treated talking to him as a game -- they were all basically geniuses and usually understood what he was saying.
I don't know if I wrote any of the characters that verbose, except for maybe D -- and he's a super-intelligent immortal chaos demon from beyond space and time, plus in any form he likes to mess with your head. Of course I got all "Doc" Smithian describing the atomic explosion -- but then if you're going to have an atom bomb in one's story (and really, how often do you get to do that in a MLP fanfic), I think one should milk it for all the drama it's worth!
Jordan, thanks for those responses. They really did a great job of answering my questions.
1) This is a very neat chapter
2) Why does Fuchs call Finemare a 'him'?
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He does call Finemare a "him"? Whoops! I have to fix that, then.
4017016
I am glad to see someone reading this -- it's my earliest attempt at a long MLP fanfic, and I may come back to it someday. I think I turned people off with the My Little Pony Tales based world premise.
*Shouldn't this be in italics?
*italics problem
... as far as I know, capitalism is not generally considered a religion, nor does it present an explanation for the origins of the universe. Discord, start making sense.
Also, yes Fuchs. Your little native arts and crafts project just helped bring about the end of your world.
Shouldn't have used so much macaroni and glitter!
4017097
Discord is totally mocking Fuchs. He needs to get his jollies as best he can, since in this form he has very little power save the ability to possess others. The hole he came through was a very tight squeeze. The mockery, though, is that he considers all the Pony political, religious and social systems equally silly, including both Communist scientific socialism" and Meganist liberal democracy.
He is making a threat. He means to bring down the Age of Wonders. Which will take some doing, since he can only work through others. So he needs to find some more influential others. Whom he can reliably hope to control. Which makes his task difficult.
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If that turned them off, they must not have actually read the story. Which I suppose they might not have; deciding whether or not to read is the description's job, after all, and that's the only place someone unfamiliar with MLP Tales could hope to . But still, if you could get them past that, I don't think there would be any problems on that score.
Perhaps you could just refer to the time period as "the Age of Wonders?"
4017114
Discord under stress; now that should be entertaining.
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I may eventually. This is a very early fanfic of mine, and I hadn't yet standardized my terms. I still want to do more of Trinity, folding "Sun Atoms" in as part of Chapter 3, maybe alternating Finemare and Discord chapters, introduce Dusk, do his friendship and romance story, send him off to war, introduce Dashie, fold in "Bridges at To-Ki-Rin" in there, do the following chapter about Dashie's recovery ("Suicide Is Painless") and then get into the space program, the Moonshot, and the covert war between Vipra and the Joe Team, etc. etc. (imagine Serpentor if he were actually Discord's new form and running the whole war for laughs), death of Dusk, Moondreamer's breakdown, Sundreamer starts playing with inventing toy cosmologies, then the sisters get onto the project with Starlight to create Paradise, the Cataclysm, and at the moment of transcendence Sundreamer and Moondreamer influence their Cosmic Selves just long enough to save the world from total annihilation by shunting most of the energy into the conversion to their toy Ptolemaric Solar System cosmology It's only gotta last for a few millennia -- what could possibly go wrong?
That'll be pretty long, I guess. A project. And I don't know if I want to put that much effort into it when most people don't really like it.
4017139
Hmm. I may delete the preceding post after I wake up. I'm giving away the whole plot, though I don't think anyone but you is reading this.
4017175
Well, it hasn't been updated for several months. If readers aren't actively searching for it, they're not likely to find it. And it also doesn't have any character tags, which, personally, is one of the main ways I search for things I have no idea about.
The negative response, as far as I can tell, was a knee-jerk reaction by two people, which is a minority of voters. Also, less than the five favorites. Also, just two people.
If you don't feel like continuing this, that's fine, but you're not going to ruin anyone's day if you choose to write more of it.
Ha ha, spoilers! I love spoilers! They're mine now, my delicious spoilers, and no one can take them away from me! Ha ha!
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Oh, very good point. Maybe I'll get back on it again at some point, then.
uh, is this any way related to the Shadow wars? or just the timeline?
4183667
Same universe, about 4000 years earlier.
I do hope you continue this one day. It's got atomic science, fan fiction backstory, and eldritch horror! What more could I ask for?
(Plus, I have to appreciate the parallel between D and Fuchs and the Shadows and Luna, even if the chaos spirit would probably be horribly offended by the comparison.)
Why'd you stop writing this story? Also, does this have anything to do with the Pony POV Series?
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This was originally meant to be an extension of the Pony POVerse, but swiftly diverged with Nightmares Are Tragic and its very different explanation of at least one sort of Nightmare state. I probably should come back to it someday. Also, both "Sun Atoms" and "The Bridges of To-ki-rin" were originally meant to be folded into this story, and may someday be.
Das ist gut, thought Schwarzwaelder Fuchs. Though a German would likely use the phrase 'Sehr gut' in this situation.
Should you ever need a German native speaker, I'm your man. Sorry for nitpicking.
Also, nice use of the name of a south German breed of workhorse, quite fitting.
Oh, and hello Discord! That's how you made your entrance... seems the two sisters always bring him with them wherever they go.
Good you just updated this story, it's getting interesting.