Aboard a rocket ship, Stellar Skies and crew are about to become the first ponies in orbit. But as the countdown begins, she remembers the stallion and life she left behind.
Written originally as part of a speed-writing challenge for Quills and Sofas Speedwriting, but I decided to publish it in honor of the NASA and SpaceX launch of Crew Dragon on May 30, 2020, the first manned launch from the U.S. in almost a decade.
Warning: While not graphic or violent, this story does touch on the topic of emotional abuse.
Chapters (1)
Well, not what I expected, at least in significant part, but I think it was good. :)
...Though because it's my brain, one of the specific details that stuck out to me was that apparently the rocket's made mostly out of steel, which raises a variety of interesting questions. :)
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Just being figurative for style. "Tower of steel" sounds better and more concise than "tower of aerospace grade aluminum and titanium."
Stella/Stellar seems to be a common first name for rocketmares.
Great story, as always.
Though if it's a large vessel, it could well be steel. Especially if there are processes for enchanting it to be harder and lighter, developed from armour smithing techniques. The SpaceX Starship/Superheavy will be stainless steel.
Though Equestria should have other solutions. Develop a propellant tank based on the foldbox Rarity carries her pavillion in on that camping trip. If you can store a hundred tons of fuel in a tank you can fit in a car and which only masses a few kilos when full, single stage to orbit becomes trivial.
Or if you can build a tube that produces a continuous conjuration effect, and set two to temporarily conjure liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, you have an endless fuel supply. It doesn't matter if the LH2 and LOX vanish after a few moments, as long as they last long enough to be run through the engine and produce thrust.
And of course there's the linked transfer crystals of Changeling Space Program.
And that's if you can't flat out leverage pegasus gravity/inertia control or unicorn telekinesis into a reactionless drive.
Lovely parallelism with leaving the planet and her regrets both behind. A great character snapshot, compressing an impressive amount of growth into so little space. Thank you for it.
I went for a space-themed story too, but the wife sent me to the hardware store, and I got distracted by the launch something terrible, so... It needs work.
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Ah, heh, thanks. :D
A beautiful little piece, it's a crying shame this doesn't have more views.
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Yeah, it would have been nice if it got a little more attention, but that's okay. I'm glad the people who have read it seem to like it.
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Quality over quantity or something like that.