Princess Twilight has seen some strange things in the past few years. She made the best friends a mare could have, she had some amazing adventures, became an alicorn princess, saved the world a few times, and got a palace to call her very own. Yet for all that, the strangest has yet to come.

There are new strangers in Ponyville. That's not too odd, but they're not ponies. They're human! But they're not like any human Twilight saw on the other side of the Mirror. Their magic isn't like anything she's ever seen, either. She'd love to learn more, but there's a problem. These humans could give Fluttershy lessons in keeping out of sight.

Dealing with snooping aliens was not exactly what Twilight had planned to put on top of her royal agenda.

I started writing this back before Season Five. It's not a new idea, not hardly, but no matter how many first contact stories I sifted through, always it was from the alien perspective. The pony perspective would come to the fore only rarely, and usually only with sizable external influences.

This story takes the idea of an alien observation team but is entirely from the locals' standpoint. What do you do when there's an alien science outpost next door?