Earth
????? C.E.
Doctor Jansen Rannicks
Journal Entry 4A23B86
So it's finally come down to this. The Celestial Project is still in its experimental phases, and could very well undo the fabric of space and time, but I see no other option considering that's already occurring thanks to the draconequus. The primary unit is nearly complete, and I dare not risk waiting any longer; the backup unit can only control a gravity well that could hold a planet, but that's simply not good enough. Fortunately, the primary has the capability to manipulate a mid-sized star, and I only hope that it is enough to control our sun. Incorporated into both are our latest experiments, the gravity-shifting and matter-controlling capabilities of Project Karkadann, and the atmosphere control and terraforming capabilities of Project Pegasus; since both projects were based on equine mythologies, we chose the form of equines for the Celestials.
I fear it may be too late, and we very well might lose the cradle of our vast intergalactic empire. So be it; if we must destroy the Earth to prevent the destruction of our species, it is a worthy price to pay. We long ago developed artificial intelligence; it will be an interesting experiment to see if my theories were right, and our biological constructs are capable of building their own society in the total absence of humans telling them what to do. It will be the final answer to the long-standing question: Have we become Gods? While far from omnipotent, our ability to change the fabric of reality, and then create creatures capable of the same feat, has achieved a level of sophistication that our ancient ancestors could only dream of.
End Entry
A man with an impeccably white full-body suit sat at a holographic terminal, now inactive, pondering what he was about to set in motion. His hand stroked his clean-shaven face in idle thought, as he set his own predictions for the next thousand years while he waited in stasis. They said that he was insane, of course, that staying on Earth while the Celestials battled to take it back from the creature rampaging somewhere out there was suicide, but Doctor Rannicks had long since grown exhausted of the monotony of life, in spite of being only done with a fraction of his millenia-long lifespan.
Humankind had long since colonized the entire galaxy, and then much of the known universe; they had gone from “faster-than-light” travel to instantaneous travel by precision-generated wormholes, tears in the fabric of the universe; they had created life, then took it a step further and imbued that life with abilities for which humans needed machines. The Celestial Project was the ultimate manifestation of that, containing the sum total of every successful projects' abilities. That it would exercise this ability in combating a chimera of humanity's own creation, a creature that could alter the universe at the most fundamental level but plagued with a predisposition to destruction and disorder, was not an irony lost on the doctor. It was the only solution left to them, though, as bringing even one interstellar starship near Earth could result in the creature capturing it and rampaging across the known universe.
He stood, taking one last wistful look around his laboratory. The chances were incredibly slight that this structure would remain standing after the war he was about to unleash, so he savored the moment before climbing into his stasis pod. Typing a sequence of commands into the terminal that erupted in front of him, he settled back into the padded interior, waiting for the system to induce brain death and form an induced gravity well around the pod, protecting him from virtually every possible source of damage. The last thing he saw through the viewport before the stasis initiated was a horse-like creature, with huge wings on its body and a long spiral horn on its head, emerging from its own stasis and glowing with a blinding white light, its many-colored mane and tail streaming in a non-existent wind behind it.
Earth
1000 Standard Years later (Appx. 363,000 Days later)
Light. Sun. Grass. Dirt. Lab gone. Ancient architecture.
The process of leaving stasis is harsh on a human mind, as it starts with the most basic cognitive functions before restoring the previous level of intellect as the brain in question quite literally comes back to life. In this case, Doctor Rannicks stared out at the pristine grassy fields before him, interrupted here and there with what were unmistakably farm plots and houses straight out of 1st-millenium Earth. Unable to move while his nervous system began to take stock of his body for the first time in a thousand years, he watched blankly as the plots were tended by... equines. They were definitely equines, although neither Karkadann-type nor Pegasus-type. For all he could tell, they were just ponies... ponies smart enough to use gardening tools with their teeth.
As soon as Rannick's muscles let him, he stumbled out of his pod. None of the ponies noticed him, but they were easily a kilometer or further away. He looked at the pod, and saw that it had been partially buried, upright, on a knoll, as if in a place of honor. He shuddered at the implications, but ignored it for the time being. As he watched the ponies farm, he wondered what he should do. Initiate contact? Would they be violent? Would they even understand him, or he them? Sentience was built into constructs by default, but these creatures were probably the result of unmonitored biological reproduction. He immediately realized that his instant classification of their actions in human terms was unfair, as these creatures were clearly the rulers of the planet now.
“Remarkable, isn't it, Doctor Rannicks?” His musings were interrupted by a female voice, not quite sultry but definitely self-assured, and as he whipped around he thought for one crazy moment that another human had survived. He realized, quickly, that this was in fact one of the constructs; and not just any one, at that, but one of the two Celestials, the primary unit its-- herself, Rannicks corrected himself. Her face came about to his, and as far as horses went she was definitely on the small side, though not nearly as much as those below. She wasn't gleaming with the light he had seen before, but he reminded himself that Karkadann-types only glowed when using their matter-manipulation.
“Celestial Alpha,” Rannicks said as casually as he could. “I'm assuming I have you to thank for not leaving me buried in a mountain somewhere? If so, thank you.”
Her face assumed an eerily human-like grin. “Doctor Rannicks, I wouldn't have dreamed of it,” she said, and if he didn't know better he would have said it was in a playful way. “Your instructions were quite clear: restabilize the solar system, re-terraform Earth, and destroy or otherwise disable the draconequus.”
He waited patiently as she trailed off. “And?” he asked when she gave no indication of speaking further.
The Celestial grimaced. “Well, Doctor, while your instructions were quite clear that we had to disable the draconequus, the destruction of the creature was not required per se...”
Rannicks could tell he wasn't going to like what he was about to hear. “Just tell me, Alpha.”
“I put him into stasis within a rocky form. Basically, I turned him into a statue.”
Rannick's face darkened. “You realized that if it escapes again, it will just go back to what it was doing, and this time kill you to prevent your interference? That thing is too dangerous, not just to this world but to the entire universe. It needs to be destroyed.”
It was the Celestial's turn to be angry. “Doctor, may I remind you that while powerful, even I do not have all the abilities that he does? Yes, I acknowledge that he is dangerous, but he is also a subject of study. I will not destroy a source of such abilities when I am more than capable of keeping him controlled even if he should escape again.”
“And if I ordered you?” Doctor Rannicks said quietly. Rather than acquiescing, this actually made the construct angrier.
“Doctor, you designed me with no limits; to put it colloquially, you pulled out all the stops. I have no limitations, and I am not beholden to humans like my distant cousins the pegasi and unicorns were. I have performed my duties to humanity, in that I am containing the horror of this chaotic being to this planet, and I will trust that you will have faith in me to do what is right. However, don't begin trying to tell me what to do, because I am not subservient to you.” Her horn, conduit of her matter-manipulation, had begun glowing slightly as her brows drew down angrily, and Rannicks could tell she was moments away from vaporizing him. He threw up a placating hand.
“Okay, fine, I didn't mean anything by it.” As she slowly relaxed and her 'magic' guttered, something she had said swam at the front of his mind. “So, cousins...?”
“Yes,” she said, and her expression softened considerably. “As you can see, the planet is being repopulated by humanity's biological constructs, or rather the constructs' descendants. I and my sister – that is to say, the second Celestial – maintain the Moon's and Earth's orbits, as the draconequus knocked them so out of normal synchronization that we must keep it under control manually. It comes in handy, though, as our subjects believe us gods.”
Rannicks' head swam. “Subjects? Gods?”
The Celestial nodded. “I adopted a name based on my construct designation: Princess Celestia, monarch-god. I found it easiest to maintain order amongst the new civilizations when they were placated both by divinity and monarchy, just like first-millenium Earth.”
“So you took it all the way back to the beginning, then?”
Celestia frowned. “I had no choice, doctor. How could I build a civilization based on the leftovers of one that had come before? It would have almost inevitably led to rebellion, as it would take but one mentally-unstable but charismatic individual to claim that I was lying to them, throw a revolution, and cause the sort of destruction and chaos that would release D-- well, they would do a lot of damage.” Her gaze fixed on the farming ponies.
Rannicks could tell she wasn't telling him something. “What would they release, Alpha – or rather, Celestia?”
She eyed him sideways. “Fine, I suppose you have the rights to know... humans managed to develop psionic capabilities, and it seems they put it into Discord, that is the draconequus. He can quite literally sense chaos and disorder, and in fact thrives on it – sort of like a drug-addicted person. I fear that, even in stasis, if he sensed the disharmony of a warring population, he would break free.” As Rannicks opened his mouth to recommend destroying the creature, Celestia shook her head angrily in anticipation. “No, doctor, I already told you – I will not destroy him. And it's not just about power, either... I don't feel right causing death or destruction.”
Rannicks didn't see why he had to mention that this was due to core programming his team was committed to putting in, programming that the draconequus had lacked. “He will get out again, you know,” he said instead. “The probability is overwhelmingly against you. It may not be tomorrow, nor for the next thousand years, but one of these days he will get out somehow.”
Celestia moved her front haunches in an analogue of a shrug. “And I can assure you that while it may not be me, someone will stop him.”
Earth
27 Days before Discord's release
“I'm telling you, Maru, this is too damned dangerous!”
“You've been saying that for the past 3 months, Jansen, ever since you learned of the project. I fail to see how your lone voice of dissent can compare to dozens of professional quantum researchers' own studies, especially when the sum total of your research are gut feelings!”
Doctor Rannicks sat back in his chair, staring at his colleague. Maru Hagues was an attractive woman, although she never really cared enough to maintain the look, engrossed as she was in her work. In contrast, her scientific mind was exactly the opposite of her aesthetic consideration; she would see only the good in something, and refuse to see the flaws and dangers, plowing ahead mindlessly. Well, that's not fair, Rannicks corrected himself. She just hasn't experienced failure yet, so she doesn't expect it. Hagues was a graduate of humanity's most elite quantum research institute on Jupiter's moon Titan, and was considered one of the best, if not the superlative, in her field.
But Rannicks simply couldn't shake his hunch, and while it was certainly centuries out of fashion, he had read some interesting materials regarding the phenomenon of the 'gut feeling'. “Maru, please listen to me,” he said earnestly. “The Dragonequus project is dangerous enough, without adding in some half-baked psionic ability. I'm a fan for omnipotence and all, but I fear that this last capability may give it the freedom to ignore our directives.”
Hagues' stared daggers at him. “Jansen, now you're just being mean” she said coldly. “May I ask you, Doctor Rannicks, exactly how many constructs have ever left human control and not been immediately put down?”
Rannicks knew the answer but didn't want to give Hagues ammunition. “Maru, that's--”
“How many, Jansen?”
He sighed. “None since we began 3 millenia ago. But--”
“No buts, Jansen,” she interrupted. “I respect you, both as a colleague and a friend, and as such I won't take offense to this blatant insult of my work, but will rather only dismiss it. However, I warn you Jansen, if I hear of one more attempt to sabotage this project, I will have you taken off of Earth and sent somewhere far away from here. You're here on my recommendation, remember, but so far you have contributed nothing but complaints, warnings, and worries.”
Rannicks knew it was pointless to argue, as she was right. Wordlessly, he stood and left the room, glancing back in the hopes that at least she would have a hurt expression on her face at his lack of farewell but seeing that she was already deep into the holographic display of her terminal already. Groaning in frustration as the door slipped closed, he set off down the pristine white hallway, lost in his thoughts.
I don't understand why they don't invest into the Celestial Project, he thought bitterly. Not nearly as dangerous, and almost as powerful. That it was his own brainchild was not a factor whatsoever; it wasn't pride that made him love the Celestial Project, it was the knowledge that his work was safer and less risky... yet humans had long since kicked risk to the curb in favor of plowing ahead, innovating as fast as they could to maintain their edge on the entire universe. Lost in his thoughts, he ran headlong into a slightly post-adolescent young man, who he immediately recognized.
“Charles,” Rannicks said amiably, “sorry about that...” The kid looked up with a worried expression, and Rannicks knew something was wrong. “What's going on?” Charles was one of Rannicks' research assistants, fresh from university, and was the fastest learner he had met in decades. He also possessed the same pragmatism which made Rannicks into such a pariah.
“Dr. Rannicks,” Charles began, but he was cut off as an announcement over the facility's auditory broadcast network came on.
“Attention, all Celestial Project staff, you are wanted in the boardroom. Thank you.”
Charles looked at Rannicks nervously. He opened his mouth, but the elder interrupted.
“Is this a question of life and death, Charles?” The young assistant considered for a moment, then shook his head slowly. Rannicks bobbed his head down the hallway that would take them to the boardroom. “Come on, then, the boss wants to see us.”
Earth
1000 Years in the Future
“I've dubbed it Equestria,” Celestia said proudly. “Not exactly a creative name, I'll be the first to admit, but it serves the purpose well enough.” She gestured across the fresh landscape stretching far into the distance with one of her forelegs. “As you can see, the chaos-ridden Earth you left behind simply wouldn't do.”
Rannicks had a burning question, and he asked it as soon as he found a place to get a word in. “Do they know about the past?” He pointed at the farmers. Celestia shook her head.
“No, doctor, and it's better that way. So far as they are convinced, the Unicorns raise the sun, the Pegasi tend the weather, and all is right with the world otherwise.”
“So, the atmosphere...?”
Celestia sighed. “Completely out of balance. It may be that there will eventually be stable areas that form and allow for self-regulated weather patterns and cycles of life, but for the most part nature is beholden entirely to us now. Discord destabilized the planet so badly that it cannot function without us interfering at every turn.”
Rannicks shook his head. “So there's no real hope for humans coming back, huh?”
“Oh, they could come back, for certain,” Celestia replied. “We would be able to control the biosphere enough to allow for colonization, and even residence. But I wouldn't recommend it. My subjects are delightfully optimistic, and humans are quite prone to... not playing well with others, no offense,” she hurriedly added.
“None taken,” the doctor said, knowing she was all too correct.
“And anything that keeps Discord imprisoned and away from the galaxy at large is a good thing. I had trouble enough restoring this planet to functional order, and I shudder to think the length of time it would take to clean up after him if he got out of the solar system.”
Celestia's matter of factness about the science of the issue disquieted Rannicks. “Celestia,” he asked, “are you sure you can keep this whole thing secret? You know, humans, this world's place in the universe, all that?”
The construct chuckled. “Rest assured, doctor, my little ponies down there don't know any better, and never will – at least, not unless they figure it out of their own merit.” She did the odd shrugging movement again. “Matter-shifting is magic. Atmosphere modification is just something Pegasi can do. They obviously don't know they're based on animals that shouldn't be able to talk, I haven't seen fit to explain otherwise, so they go on their merry way. It makes a very interesting spectacle out of my very long life cycle, to be honest. Somehow, I think the monotony of just sitting around, waiting for Discord to do something or for my life to end would be dreadfully boring.”
Rannicks nodded. It sounded very similar to his hypothesis, and little surprise – Celestia had been designed with a metaphorical piece of him inside. Something bothered him, though. “You said unicorns raise the sun? Or so they think?”
Celestia caught on far more quickly than he anticipated. “I know, Doctor, that you believe that they may learn the truth that way. Remember that they were raised in a world where the status quo is this way. They have never lived in a reality where the planet rotates itself, or the weather is a natural phenomenon. They accept that they each have their unique places in this hierarchy of a functional world, and are content.”
The doctor saw the problem immediately. “And if the ponies who have neither the Karkadann matter-shifting abilities nor the Pegasus weather control capabilities should get, for lack of a better term, jealous?”
Celestia frowned and regarded the ground. “Unfortunately, that already came to pass a century or so ago, a civil war between the different 'races'. As much as I admire my subjects, you must realize that they remain living creatures, and as such will feel the need to compete for resources. At first, once Discord was sealed away, they interacted amiably enough, and I kept out of their affairs. Then, I noticed that the Unicorns and Pegasi both began demanding tribute from the Earth ponies – that is, those without either races' powers – and the lack of cooperation put the world into an Ice Age. I suspect some psionic creatures from mankind's experimentation are the culprits, to some extent, but we were all to blame.”
“So did you step in?” Rannicks was enthralled.
Celestia shook her head. “There was no need to. They formed an alliance and realized that they're all in this together. Soon after, I decided to put my plan into action and assume a position of power, based on studies of how successful such systems were in humanity's past. They were all too willing, as I represented the union of the Unicorns and Pegasi, while also caring for the fate of the Earth ponies.”
“A benevolent dictator?” Rannicks clarified. There was no embarrassment in Celestia's expression at all.
“Yes, to be quite blunt. Eventually, I'll expand this little corner of the world into a true castle, and then a keep, and then the capital of the world.”
Rannicks was confused. “True castle?” he asked. “We're on a hilltop. No offense, Celestia, but if this is your idea of a medieval castle – “
She laughed softly, cutting him short. “Remember, Doctor, I am quite talented at changing the world. Come, I'll show you.” She walked away, and he followed her, glancing back at the farming ponies below... and then, turning around, found himself staring at a stone wall. He looked around, and saw that he was in a hallway, constructed entirely of masonry. He looked again at where he had been, and saw now that it was a doorway; a perfectly rectangular image of grass and open sky greeted him, bordered on all sides by the same stone that made up the walls.
“I won't go so far as to assume that you built that room just for me, but...”
Celestia grinned. “Oh yes, Doctor, the moment an archaeologist petitioned me and told me about this amazing artifact that was made of a material she didn't believe could possibly be Equestrian, I figured we had finally relocated our last human. So I naturally hushed her up and gave her a token reward, and told her I would have a team of my best royal scientists examine it. Of course, I don't actually have royal scientists, and I knew exactly what your capsule was anyways, so instead I just stuck you in that room, having checked the diagnostics and seeing that you would be coming back within a few years. The scene you witnessed is actually many long kilometers away.”
Rannicks opened his mouth to respond, but was disrupted by the foot-- hoofsteps, he corrected himself – of another pony from down the hall. He glanced over to see a navy-blue equine, smaller than Celestia but not nearly as much as the farmers, and instantly recognized it – her – as the second Celestial construct. His initial excitement was tempered somewhat by her expression, as an incredibly deep frown marred what would have been a face as likable as Celestia's.
“Sister,” the second construct said, her voice harsh and, if Rannicks was hearing correctly, bitter, “Have you decided yet whether to approve my request?”
Celestia sighed, and Rannicks could feel the weariness that went into it. “Dear sister,” Celestia said softly, “I already told you that you are free to do as you will with the night. It is your own to command, provided you do not place Equestria in harm's way. But I also told you that I do not believe a comet will make a difference... our subjects are simply too tired at the end of the day to stay awake throughout the night.”
“Right, of course,” the other Celestial spat out. “Nobody cares about my artistry. Everything's about Celestia's beautiful sunrises and Celestia's breathtaking sunsets, and the stars and moon are just ignored despite being infinitely more intricate. I don't even know why I even bother with it, to be honest.”
“Luna,” Celestia began, but the other pony stormed off, leaving Rannicks completely bewildered as to what had just occurred. “I'd like you to meet my sister, Luna,” Celestia told him without looking at him, her voice dry but her eyes a bit less so. Rannicks' silence persisted as he watched a tear form in the corner of the eye he could see and slide down her face.
