When Empires fall

     Twilight was speechless, all the artitechture was so unsusual, as most ruins were primitive villages or spectacular palaces. But this was different, it was efficient and blocky, but neat and futuristic. And so well preserved, there was barelybany decay apart from a few pens or and sheets of paper broken and aged. The desks were littered with curious looking devices, all of which she hoped to understand some day,  as she scribbled on her seemingly endless notebook.

     She picked up random objects and placed them in small containers for study sometime later, until she came across a small glass pane in a wall, which was clearly not a window.

     'How strange' she thought.

     She poked it to see if there was any other purpose it served when it came alive with a blue light after being touched.

'INFORMATION BOOTH A' appeared on the screen.

     There had been a foreign aura from the place of total absence of any magic whatsoever, yet there it was, a magic that she had never encountered before.

"What is that?" She asked to nobody in particular until a feminine but neutral voice came from the strange screen.

"Information booth A, how may I help you?"

She gasped, wondering how it just spoke, but the fact it said it was an information source intrigued her.

"What... What is this place?"

"Genesis facility fourty four, you are currently in reception."

All the other ponies in the room had trotted over the Twilight and the screen at this point, also intrigued by this mysterious thing.

"Ask it what this place is for?"

"What is the genesis facility for?"

"The genesis facility is a reasearching facility, it's secondary use is a storage, of technologies and works, in case Earth should ever fall?"

"Earth?"

"Earth, the homeworld of the Human race and capital of the Human empire, after it stopped taking in refuges, it numbered at some 14.6 billion."

"Human?"

"Humans, a race evolved from primates on Earth, currently the leading force and superpower in the known Galaxy."

This was incredible, an entire space empire of... primates? She needed more information!

"Who built this, humans?"

     "The Genesis facility was completed seventy eight years ago in 4456, by mainly efforts of OASIS industries, a human corporation."

"Seventy eight years ago! Why has nopony ever known about this?"

     "The facilities began construction several centuries ago, the completion date includes the addition of the Hexallion shielding projects. Since the facility was completed underground a century or so before primtive sapient horse species began settling and exploring their southern lands, this is first contact."

     "Ask it what magic it uses!"

     "How is your magic so powerful?"

      "Magic is simply a myth, it was never involved in the manufacturing of any component of the genesis facility, including this toll booth and the central computers this is connected to."

     "That's impossible! No civilisation could ever survive without magic, how would the suns move?"

     "The suns do not move, the worlds are dragged around it via gravitattional fields, on the surface, this gives the illusion that the sun is the object moving."

     Twilight composed herself, and tried to move to more important topics.

     "Is there anyone else in this facility?"

     "Most subjects are deceased, there are currently eight specimens of a sapient horse strain in the reception of Facility 44 public entrance alpha and twenty three live subjects scattered around facilities 12-59."

      "Where are they?"

     "Lockdown proceedures in effect are currently renduring your access levels to that information invalid, security advises you to take to yur nearest security station as an outer gate has been breached despite fortification measures."

     "That explains the guge metal door." Said Antique hooves.

     "When will lockdown proceedure.. uh... end?"

    "When a subject with sufficient security cleareance terimanetes the lockdown manually."

     "Why did you lock it all up?"

     "Unknown sapient species attacked the facility gates without authorisation, so the computer took charge in the absence of any security personell and activated lockdown protocols. Further on, these lockdown proceedures are only activated legally when there has been an attack on the facility or for quarantine measures."

     "Can we contact anyone inside?"

     "You can request an audio link with Jacob Sanders when he is directed towards the nearest security office."

     "Can you do that?"

     "Yes."

     "Then I'd like to request an audience."

     "Request granted."

     Twilight composed herself again, scribbling down on her notebook about everthing that had happened whilst everypony began asking questions amongst themselves. Antique hooves then turned to Twilight and said;

      "I sure do hope you know what you're doing."

     "I do too." She replied.

      Jacob was walking down the corridor, next to him was Richard Herp (:3), a medical researcher from the stated stasis room. They had been looking for some more survivors when a voice came from the ceiling, suprising both of them.

     "Jacob Sanders, please report to the neaarest security office."

     "Any idea what AI wants Jacob?"

     "Not a clue Richie. But it's not like the C.A's going anywhere soon."

-(The C.A is short for communications arials, a large mesh of spirals and dishes and basically everything that makes a signal better.)

     It didn't take long to find the office as Jacob had a very good knowledge of the facilities, let alone the waypoints marked by AI.

     He perched himself on a seat and said to the computer screen. "What did you need AI?"

     "A subject at the reception wishes to open up an audio communications link with you."

     A major crisis devastates life across the entire arm of the milky way, with Earth and the Genesis planet possibly being the only civilisation left in the known void, and there's tourists at the reception? It might've been the same ones who caused the 'incident' at the outer gate though..

      "Open up the communication interface AI."

     A large central portion of the screen went black with 'Establishing connection' glowing in the middle of it, until a moving image of something she'd never seen before appeared.

     Both the creature in the screen and there rest of te team went "WOAH, what the hell is that?"

     "What are you?"

     "Talking.... horses?" "Now I've seen everything."

     "What are you!?" Twilight spoke in a more determined voice, not to present any sign of weakness.

     "Jacob, human... and you're a.. horse."

     "Pony if you must know, and I'm Twilight Sparkle!"

     The creature in the moving image started to laugh loudly, after hearing that her name was Twilight Sparkle, Twilight was confused as to why it was laughing.

     "AHHH ha ha hah.. Twilight Sparkle!? What kind of mname is that? Oh, oh, is the dude next to you Candyman? Or he is he like Ice cream commander?" He chuckled away on every word he spoked. The Humans clearly didn't have any manners, it was all too well that Rarity was not here.

     "Well Jacob isn't exactly the most usual name around here!"

     "Around here. clearly but at least I'd have a normal name in the rest of the galaxy.. heh heh. Hey Richie, c'mere. Look at these talking ponies, the purple one says it's Twilight Sparkle." "She's Twilight Sparkle."

     Another human came into the vew of the moving image screen, he had a more masculine face, whilst Jacob's was slimmer, and with a stubble instead of Richie's thin beard.

     "Really?" 'Richie' chuckled a bit after hearing this.

     "Anyway, the talking glass says that there's a locked up routine, and we need you to open it up so we can explore this place."

      "One, it's a computer, and two, we don't know what you're capable of so we're going to get some more of our guys, so you guys just stay there for a few hours or so, and then we'll talk."

     With that, the moving images dissapeared, to be replaced with the blue screen with the words 'Connection Severed' glowing on it.

     Well, all she had to do was stick around for a while, couldn't be that hard could it? Right?