Urania

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Qui n’a plus qu’un moment à vivre, n’a plus rien à dissimuler.

Quinault, Atys

Fall is holding sway over Equestria. Applebuck season is well over, and Ponyville’s Running of the Leaves has taken place two weeks ago. Now, everypony is looking forward to Nightmare Night, but it is still one month away. The weather is rainy, windy, in fact so dismal that the streets of Ponyville, usually so busy, are utterly deserted. A foreign visitor, sauntering through the village, would surely believe that all the inhabitants have fled away, maybe in response to some imminent disaster.

But no. The princess Twilight Sparkle and Spike are dawdling at home, about to indulge in an after-lunch nap when somepony unexpectedly rings the door bell.

“Who could be so plucky as to confront such bleak weather?” wonders Twilight, shuffling reluctantly to the door. She opens and finds herself facing the smirking face of Derpy Hooves.

“Princess Twilight Sparkle, I’ve got a special delivery for you from Canterlot,” declares Derpy.

“A delivery from Canterlot?” repeats Twilight incredulous. “Who is it from? Neither Celestia nor Luna rely on the regular mail service, habitually.”

“Let me see…” answers Derpy. She fumbles with her pouch, and all the envelopes fall on the ground. “Oops! I’m so sorry,” she apologizes with an embarrassed smile. She stoops to gather her stuff.

“No worry!” says Twilight. “Let’s pick up all this. Hmmm… Ah, my letter. I’m keeping it, here are all the others. Thanks Derpy!”

“You’re most welcome, Princess. Thank you for helping me fix this mess!”. She bobs a curtsy, and flies away.

Twilight closes the front door, then scrutinizes the letter. “It’s from Dark Wing!” she exclaims merrily. She scuttles to her workbench where she grabs a cutter and splits the envelope open. She levitates the sheet from inside, unfolds it and begins to read aloud: “My sweet purple bookworm, or shall I call you ‘your Highness’ now?” – she giggles – “I hope you’re doing well and your new responsibilities do not make you break down too often. I know it has been long a time since we last met, and that you did your best to avoid me after your graduation. But please, I beg you to reconsider and pay me a visit at my office in the ESA building in Canterlot (office A-43): I have a lot to tell you regarding my latest discoveries. Make up your mind quickly, as I am about to embark on a perilous and long journey, that I cannot defer much longer. Hoping to see you before I depart, your always faithful, Dark Wing.”

“Who is that guy?” asks Spike, puzzled. “He seems to know you fairly well, but I’ve never seen him around.”

“He was the history and archaeology teacher during my undergraduate courses at Celestia’s School for gifted unicorns. He has authored reference books on Equestria prehistory, for instance the one about ancient diseases in the Paleopony period that I consulted when Apple Bloom got the cutie pox. In fact, I owe him most of my knowledge of that time period. Lively, brilliant, handsome, charismatic, he had just two flaws: first, he has never put up with hierarchical relations of any sort. He works alone, on the fringe, bypassing the establishment and reporting only to Celestia, something his bosses have always deeply resented; That’s why he’s somewhat unknown: he is considered a kind of pariah in the Equestria archaeological microcosm, and his lab gets measly funding. If it weren’t for Celestia’s personal support, he would probably have starved long ago.

Next, he has always philandered, especially with his young students. An easy task: he was mesmerizing virtually every female pupil of his. Well, except me: by the time I was attending his class, I had other things in mind than frolicking with a teacher. And, of course, he had a crush on me, nicknaming me “his sweet purple bookworm”. He made several passes at me, and each time I had to brush him off. At the end, I really got fed up, and when I graduated I decided to cut off any relations other than formal ones. We remained in close contact, but through written exchange only. Three years ago, he told me about his new expedition and the hopes he had to make a groundbreaking discovery. But until this afternoon, I had no further news, and I must confess I completely forgot to ask him.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going visit him tomorrow at the ESA – the Equestrian Society of Archaeologists. I don’t like the way the end of his letter was written. The wording and tone doesn’t sound like him. It feels somehow ominous. Even though he harassed me, I can’t help but care for him. I want to find out what’s going on.”

⁂

After a two hour train trip and a short walk, Twilight arrives at the ESA, a dark and austere building located in the outskirts of Canterlot. She enters and inquires at the information desk about the office #A-43. “First floor, right wing,” the information clerk tells her. Twilight treads lightly along several gloomy corridors and eventually finds the right door at which she knocks.

“Yes, come in!” says a muffled voice inside.

Twilights opens the door and pads into a small and dirty office whose cracked walls are soberly decorated with abstract paintings and old anatomic hoof-made drawings, all stained by large brown splotches and covered in a thin layer of dust. Hidden behind a worn-out desk, somepony rummages in one of the drawers. Grunting in dissatisfaction, the occupant of the office stands up, revealing himself to be a light blue Pegasus stallion with a somewhat disheveled red mane, gaunt, with large shadows under his eyes. His bony legs hardly seem to bear his scrawny body.

“Hey Twilight! I am so happy you could come by!” he says with a forced smile.

“Dark Wing!” shouts Twilight aghast. “What happened to you? Are you…”

“Sick? Yes, I suppose…” Dark Wing cuts in. “Let me get this straight, and answer your next few questions. Yes, it is serious. The right term is: terminal. How much time I’ve left? Two months, and I’ll beat all odds. And, no, it is not contagious, otherwise I wouldn’t have invited you. You’re totally safe here. Now you know why I insisted you come quickly, and what is the ultimate voyage I mentioned in my message…”

“But how?”

“Oh, it’s a long story. I guess I sacrificed my life to my only true love – besides you, darling: Science. Isn’t that awesome for a debauched scientist such as me to end up victim of a crime of passion? No?” He glares intensely at Twilight, then sighs. “Excuse me if I sound melodramatic. You know, you’re the only pony I really trust in this part of Equestria. My family, or what remains of it, lives so far away…”

“I still don’t understand,” Twilight complains. “You’re an archaeologist, not a physician or a chemist or whatever. Archaeology does not involve exposure to fatal diseases or hazardous compounds, as far as I know. It’s just about digging up old stuff and bones.”

“Ah, Twilight,” he chuckles. “You know I have a lot of affection for you. You’re cute, sassy, energetic and, despite your youth – don’t get angry if I call you a filly – you have already hoarded a solid amount of wisdom. I was so proud when Celestia crowned you. But you still have a lot to learn, my pretty fledgling royalty.”

A sudden coughing fit forces him to break off. “Sorry…” he wheezes, breathless. He pants for a short while then resumes, grimly:  “You see, it’s not a life. I love this place, Equestria, my family, my friends, and I enjoyed almost every moment of my existence, but I can’t stand it much longer. Death will be a welcomed relief. Don’t grieve! I’ve already taken the appropriate steps to quicken the final throes. Meanwhile…” He pulls a drawer, picks up two blue pills that he swallows with a bit of water, before nudging gently the drawer back in place. “…The regular analgesics can still keep the pain at bay – for a few hours at a time, that is.”

He shuffles to the nearest cabinet, opens its wooden door and grasps two glasses and a half-empty bottle of apple brandy. Putting them on the desk, he says “Please have a drink. Help yourself!”

“No, thanks!” she declines.

“Please, don’t tell me you’re still so prim. Celestia taught you too well my dear. Had you been my own personal protégée, I surely would have added to your exercises some tiny extras…” He leers maliciously at a blushing Twilight, winks and turns his head away, coughing again. “Anyway, it’s too late now. Sorry for making you feel uncomfortable. You surely remember that old quote: ‘Who has but a moment left to live has nothing to conceal anymore.’ Which brings us back to why I invited you. But, before I begin, you must promise me something, my sweet foxy dish.” He pours some brandy into his glass, that he chugs away.

“What is it?” demands Twilight, intrigued.

He bites his lips. “What I am going to disclose has been classified as State secret. You know what it means?”

“Yes: it is restricted to Celestia’s and Luna’s eyes only.”

“Precisely. And even Celestia does not know every aspect of it, since I had to fudge some details to scrape her approval. I could be prosecuted for high treason, should you tattle.”

“I am no snitch!” Twilight protests.

“Of course, honey! I didn’t imply that. Besides, by the time the trial would take place, I’d be dead anyway: I don’t risk much. It’s for your own good that I beg you to keep silent: Celestia despises those who flout her orders. But I feel that, since you’re a princess now, you’re entitled to know the truth.”

He reaches his right hoof out and seizes a large scroll that he unrolls on the desk, revealing a recent map of Equestria. “Do you want to know where I caught that frightful sickness that consumes my health day after day?” He stomps his hoof at a large uncharted area on the right border of the map. “Here!”

“Do you mean you traveled to Urania?” Twilight gasps in a shrill voice.

“Well, of course I mean that!”

“But Urania is the one place in Equestria which is strictly forbidden to explore.” She shudders. “Trespassing is punished by… the death penalty.”

“Do you really imagine Celestia burning somepony at the stake for disregarding this ban?” titters Dark Wings.

“Of course not! But she can nonetheless jail you for a millennium,” retorts Twilight. “And that, unless you’re called Luna, amounts, in all aspects, to the same…”

“Nice quip, my purple candy! You know, I may be bold, but I’m no daredevil. It was out of question to rove through Urania without first telling Celestia. And it’s anyhow impossible: a secret warning spell surrounds the whole area. If anypony encroaches, she is immediately informed.”

He pauses, gulps some more brandy, and carries on.

“Now, there is something else puzzling about this prohibition: It is not one of Celestia’s. I skimmed through the Equestria law archive at the Canterlot royal library and found no trace of it. It is older than any written record. It seems to be shrouded in the remotest antiquity. I’d rather call it a taboo.”

“Then what purpose does it serve?”

“At the time I planned my expedition, I had no definitive answer, only wild speculations. Now, I think I figured it out…” He breaks off, stifling another coughing fit. “… In the first place, it’s a place where you can obviously … come across … pretty evil bugs. So it seems quite sound to forbid trespassing. Next… Well I guess you’d rather hear the whole story. Make yourself comfortable, if you can find any comfort in such a rundown office.”

Twilight finds a shoddy cushion and plops herself down. He begins: “You know I never felt comfortable about the current theories on the evolution of ponies. I find them too perfect, too static. In other words, too catchy to be really true.”

“I don’t agree with you. You’re just plain fussy!” declares Twilight.

“Twi’ please! I love you, but sometimes you’re so… boringly ordinary. That’s what’s wrong about Celestia’s school. It’s a state operated college, meant to crank out state officials, incapable of any creative thinking or initiative. You enter it a young rowdy filly, you graduate a spinster. I don’t call it a school, because it is more a brainwashing factory than a true educational establishment. I thought you’d be clever enough to fight off this indoctrination, but it’s obviously very efficient. No, Twilight, doing science does not mean reading book on book, hoarding knowledge just to flaunt it, learning by rote and spitting out what you’ve been taught like a machine.”

His voice roars with anger. “Doing science means questioning. Questioning what you read, what you hear, what you see. Questioning that darn readout that does not fit with the others. Questioning that last digit that refuses to yield the expected value, or, on the contrary, questioning a theory that jibes too well. Questioning that strange sample somebody stored away in an obscure cupboard. Wondering why your coat is purple and your brother’s is white. What cuties mark are for. Why some ponies heal so well while others die. Why Celestia and Luna are eternal. Why they use magic to raise the Sun and the Moon, while stars and planets move on their own. That’s science, with a capital s. Curiosity. Perpetual intellectual unrest.

“Now, all the books you’ve read about pony evolution have been written by frauds, shameless slothful bums that have never hauled their rump out of their office and led real field excavations. They just squeeze what has already been laid down by their predecessors, who had done the same before, and so on… They thrive in confrerences, swaggering and boasting at Celestia’s dinner table about their latest achievements that amount to nothing. They are no scientists, they are just filthy careerists. Twi’, most of the books you cherish so much are not scientific references. They are copycats. They are…” He shrugs, then, more quietly: “They are religious tomes. And you believe in them. I beg you earnestly, my sweet purple bookworm, quit being mainstream. Learn to be critical, critical of what the others write, and more critical still of your own work. Be fussy and fierce: Find the tiny snag that will make the whole theory crumble. Start using your brain and stop dabbling, for Celestia’s sake!”

“I… I’m so sorry,” Twilight stammers. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s all right sugar, it’s all right. I’m just so sickened by this gang of presumptuous boobs nopony dares to challenge. When I behold how they have hobbled Equestrian scientific research, I can’t help but explode. But please, do as I say. Do it for me. You’re worth much more than this.”

“I promise I will,” says Twilight somberly.

“Good. Now, sweetie, can you tell me in a few words what do you know about the accepted pony evolution theory?”

“Of course!” answers Twilight. “Our species, Equus Sapiens, has emerged out of the last ice age about 50,000 years ago. The need to fend off the chill climate has prompted our ancestors to tame fire and master toolmaking, thereby initiating the ascent towards consciousness, intelligence and speech. After the ice age ended, we have, in the course of the last millenaries, colonized all Equestria. And that’s it.”

“Good! And what about those ancestors before the ice age?”

“Hum… I’ve never heard of any excavations digging up pony bones dated so far back.”

“Absolutely right!” confirms Dark Wing. “And why, according to you, are we unable to find such bones?”

“I guess because the pony population was so scant that their remains are sparse and we’ve just failed to search for them in the right place.”

“A reasonable course,” Dark Wing nods. “So here is the frame: A few scattered ponies we don’t know anything about, except that they sheltered in caverns during the ice age and… bingo! Brain and wit and speech and fire and conquest of the world! Doesn’t it sound a bit glib to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that we are faced with a staggering conundrum. If those ancient ponies were sapient as we are, they would have colonized the world the way we did, so we would by now have found remains or lithic industries or rubble or whatever else. Since we’ve found nothing, the most straightforward hypothesis is that they were wild, living, as you said, in small herds spattered all over Equestria and eking out their existence. Now, do you think a being, be it a pony or not, can evolve out intelligence in about 20,000 years, as we are supposed to have done? Isn’t that a ludicrously short period of time for such a major achievement?”

“Hmmm…” Twilight ponders. “Now that you point it out…”

“Now that I point it out,” interrupts Dark Wings, “it also dawns on you that it is indeed unrealistic, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, but what do you suggest instead?” Twilight asks.

“When I first mulled over this quandary, I came out with the only possible answer, that we are not related to those ancient ponies. With the ice age, or because of it, we experienced a tremendous change that is not related to the slow processes involved in natural evolution. And somehow, I knew on a hunch that I would find the proofs I needed in this one forbidden land, Urania. Besides, did you ever wonder what Urania means?”

“Uh?” responds Twilight, taken aback. “Urania means nothing, it’s just a geographical name, period.”

“You disappoint me, honey. You never read about toponymy?”

“No, please elaborate.”

“Toponymy is the scientific discipline tied to linguistics that studies the etymology of place names. The basic assumption of toponymy is that every geographical name is motivated, that is, has a meaning by the time it is given. Nopony ever calls a new founded town, a newfound river or mountain with a grunt. On the contrary, one gives very distinctive names: Ponyville, Canterlot, White River, Everfree Forest, Muddy Mire, Brookheim, Fillydelphia, Craw Knoll, Darkborough, Bronco Hill, Tusk Mount, et cetera. Sometimes, these names change slightly with time, but mostly they survive unaltered through centuries, even though the language spoken by the inhabitants undergoes deep evolutions that obscure the original name.

Now, if that is true – and it is true, take my word for it – Urania should mean something, because the surrounding area has been settled only in a recent past, when pony language was not that different from what it is now. But no, as you pointed out, Urania has no definite meaning. Neither can this mysterious name be traced back to some clearer ancient form. It appears to simply predate any recorded pony language, a fact that, alone, is as baffling as the death penalty ban that overshadows the land it refers to.”

He helps himself some more brandy, and shakes the now almost empty bottle. “I’ll have to buy some more very soon,” he notices. “I have become a shabby drunkard, but I don’t care. What do I have to lose?” He stares at Twilight, as if waiting for an answer.

“Am I really supposed to comment on this?” replies Twilight.

“No. It wasn’t a real question anyway. We both know the answer.”

“Blast your carelessness! So, according to you, what happened?” snorts Twilight peevishly. “Were we teleported from another world? Did some forgotten almighty god carve an equine statue out of mud and bestow life upon it? Or is it something more preposterous still?”

He titters and bows: “Your Highness, allow me to pass off your cranky remark. By the way, do you believe in extra-equestrian life? I mean, do you think they are some other intelligent beings anywhere in this universe?”

“I have no clue. Until we find a way to explore space, this is a question not likely to be solved. I don’t squander time in such pointless riddles,” Twilight shrugs.

“And what about your short stay in… ‘Canterlot high school’, isn’t that it?”

Twilight’s eyes widen. “How do you know?” she asks in amazement. “It was supposed to be strictly confidential.”

“It doesn’t matter at this point. Fact is, you met other life forms, didn’t you?”

“Yes. But that was another dimension, another universe.”

“What a bunch of baloney!” exclaims Dark Wing.

“What do you mean? Celestia and Cadence told me…”

“Okay, okay. Let’s talk no further of it right now!” Dark Wing breaks in. “But at least, it should convince you that life, intelligent life, is possible elsewhere, under unfamiliar guises.”

“Granted,” concedes Twilight.

“So Urania is a name whose roots are lost in the mists of time. This fact, plus the interdict, plus all I told you about the evolution of our species, was enough to rouse my curiosity. I huddled with Celestia… Gah! Stop thinking dirty. It was just a private meeting, that’s all. I exposed my hypothesis, and why it was so crucial to grub through this forsaken region to seek out the answers. She accepted to lift the ban on this occasion, under the condition that every discovery be classified as State secret. Condition to which I obviously agreed. Then, we immediately began packing up for the most daring travel ever attempted since ponies are ponies.”

“We? Who’s we? Did Celestia come with you?” asks Twilight.

“Twilight, sometimes I wonder why you strive to appear sillier than you are. Of course Celestia didn’t join us. She has bigger fish to fry, even though she is captivated by my researches. We refer to me and my assistants. You did not fancy I was going to stride through Urania alone, did you?”

“How did you deal with your sidekicks? I mean, it’s easy for a person to keep a secret, but not for five or ten or maybe more.”

“They were taken care of.”

“Wh… What?” sputters Twilight, almost choking. “You… you killed them?”

“Yes, we had to,” he says, stooping as if of guilt. He sighs. “State security is something you can’t tamper with, even if it implies cold-blooded murders…” Then, raising his head: “Darn it Twilight! Stop talking bunk! Celestia terminating innocent ponies? You brainless dummy. No, they are still very alive, but she had them brainwashed with an oblivion spell. Then she implanted faked memories to fill the blank. They all believe they have been working on a regular excavation at the rim of the Crystal empire. That’s what their families were told, too. And they were unaware of our true destination until the third day after we set out. This way, there was no need to take some extra care.”

“Nice trick. I beg your pardon, but I really doubted for a while…”

“No worry. But we are not barbarians, remember. We’ve outgrown sticks and stones.” He guzzles another sip of brandy, then clears his throat and resumes: “In a way, I wish we’d traveled to the Crystal empire. I’d still be lolling about in blissful ignorance, and be healthy. But I guess it had to be that way. So, are you ready to hear the tale?”

“I guess I am,” responds Twilight. “Go ahead.”

Dark Wing snuggles down near Twilight, takes a breath and starts relating one of the strangest stories ever heard in Equestria.