Future's Past

Nononononononono, this can’t be happening. It’s 3997?! I travelled through time? How? I thought these vortices could only move you spatially, not temporally. I really did jinx it back there.

But, if it’s almost 2000 years from where I left, what happened to my friends? The Terran-Equestrian Alliance? Equestria? The rest of Equus? Anything I have ever known? Will I ever get back? And even better, how will I survive in a world that is guaranteed to be even more foreign to me than Canterlot High was, with absolutely nothing on me and a debt a currency I’m also unfamiliar with? This is too much…

***

“’you alright?” a voice said to me from somewhere I couldn’t make out. What happened? “I suppose.” I looked around, my surroundings being very blurred. I must have hit my head particularly hard in bed last night. “I just had this really weird dream that I flew my starfighter into a vortex and traveled through time to the 3990s.”

My vision slowly started to improve, I could make out that I lay in what felt and looked like a hospital bed. It also quacked like a hospital bed. Must be a hospital bed, then. To my right there was a purple-ish window. Is it night time or am I in space?

“You suddenly fainted, and we brought you to the sick bay. You must have had quite a day. Care to explain what you were even babbling about back there? I’m already somewhat stressed, and I’m sorry for having to put it this way, but your crazy antics don’t make the situation I find myself in any more easy or relaxing.” Why did this pony have to yell at me like this? I just woke up from sleep, I didn’t faint. “Leave me alone.” I said.

“No, I certainly won’t, my winged unicorn stowaway. You tell me what happened, or I will immediately cancel our earlier deal and send your sorry flank right out the airlock."

“I already told you, I’ve had a nightmare and woke up here.” Great, first I get thrown out of bed after whatever just happened, and now someone is threatening me with death by vacuum, over a deal I don’t remember agreeing to and in a tone that is not okay in anypony’s book.

“So, you claim to not know, and I’m supposed to just take that at face value? Are you trying to cheat me out of the 1200 credits you owe me or what? *groan* You know what, fine, I’ll just assume that’s the case, since you are worth more to me alive than dead. You must have hit your head pretty hard, after all, you were out for almost 3 hours.”

Once my vision was finally restored, I noticed that the place I found myself in was eerily reminiscent of the place I encountered in my dream. Wait, I did dream, right? “Where am I?” I asked, a lot more calm that I would have thought possible.

“You are on the sickbay on the cargo ship USCSS Candlelight, currently on a detour to the planet of Olympus, since I agreed to take you there if you were to cover the extra costs resulting from the time lost on my original shipment to the planet of Spark and the flight ticket you need to get to Equus. We’re currently in Transit, just one hour out from Olympus. Also, since you asked earlier, it’s the year 3997. Any questions?”

So, I didn’t dream, I fainted. Great, now what? “Not really.”

The pony staring back at me put on a slightly angry face. “Good, now that that’s out of the way, you tell me. Who or what exactly are you, what happened to you and who is this Sunset Shimmer?”

My head was still grumbling from my accident earlier, but I looked over what I could remember clearly. “My name is Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria, I volunteered, together with my friends, to deliver a blast of Rainbow Power to Sunset Shimmer by starfighter in order to reform her and make her abandon her cruel ways. She is both an old friend and enemy of mine, and an ex-protégé of Princess Celestia. I first met her on a world beyond a mirror that was similar to Earth, where she terrorized the local high school and one day broke into the crystal palace in Equestria to steal my crown, out to take over Equestria as well. The equivalents of my Ponyville friends and I defeated her by channeling the power of the Elements of Harmony through my crown, which by that point rested on her head, turning her into a she-demon. At first, we thought she had reformed, even saving the day together with us a few months later when this other world was attacked by Equestrian sirens-turned-humans. But something must have happened, as this same Sunset Shimmer, whom I had left in the other world with my friends from Canterlot High, suddenly burst into Ponyville Palace in 2123. She rushed over to me and screamed something to me I will never forget. “Where were you when I needed you the most!?” She ran out, sobbing, and I only met her again in 2141, when she began invading Terran-Equestrian space with a fleet of highly advanced spacecraft. The forces of the Coalition were pushed back to the Core systems very quickly and with high losses, our fleet being somewhat underfunded from disputes between several of Earth’s nation states and Equus. Once the enemy fleet reached Equus, however, the Coalition seemed to come out on top for the first time, so Shimmer created a weird vortex to escape. I followed her, and somehow ended up here. That’s all I know.”

The captain raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m inclined to believe anything at this point, so, sounds good enough. Now please, go and take a shower, you’re still covered in vomit and it’ll probably take several weeks for me to fully eradicate the stench. After that, come up to the bridge, we’ll arrive at Olympus in 45 minutes.”

***

Ahh, that shower has been one of the most refreshing things that I have partaken in over the past few days. Days. You know, that term has suddenly started to sound peculiar, since it has technically been almost two millennia since I’ve last taken a shower. Or eaten. Or went Number Two. Or did anything to keep myself alive, for that matter. While it would certainly be interesting to know how a living being would cope with being kept alive for 2000 years while deprived of the ability to meet its basic needs, that’s another experiment I’m not too fond of conducting on myself at this time. But time travel itself is a strange and intriguing subject. You could get anywhere, “anytime” you wanted and still be home in time for dinner.

Hold on, that reminds me, this isn’t the first time I’ve been travelling through time. Back before I became a princess, when I was still living in the tree that was the Golden Oak Library, I got worked up over a failed attempt at communicating with an earlier version of myself after a later version of myself tried to communicate with me and warn me of something I deduced was a disaster, and it later turning out that pony was myself trying to communicate with myself from the past. Wrap your head around that one. If you couldn’t, please remain in your seats until after class and I’ll explain it to you once more. *chuckle* Apparently nothing’s changed. Silly me.

“What’s so funny?” some voice asked. “Oh, nevermind, it’s nothing special. Just a joke I read in a newspaper this morning.” Yeah, that sounds convincing enough. But then why was the response “What’s a newspaper?”? Are these Ponies informed on anything that’s going on in the world right now? Or did society descend into a flock of television-internet sheep while I wasn’t looking? Judging by the amount of time I've missed, that could very well be the reason.

As I went along towards the bridge of the ship, I once again noticed how bright and advanced everything around me looked. Even the ambient hum of the engines was barely noticeable. Wow, all this just asks for closer examination. And at that moment, I made a decision: I’m going to purchase a ship like this one. After I get back to Equus, find a job, get a place to live in, find out what happened to my friends and paying my debts to Miss Blackmail, that is. Now where’s my phone, I need to write down some notes.

***

As I entered the bridge, the captain looked over to me, her face suddenly turning from stern to jarringly gleeful. “Ah, you look much less miserable now. Somewhat drizzly mane, but you look far more presentable than earlier. Come over here, I want to have a good look at history’s first interstellar time traveler. Can I have your autograph?”

What?

“Ugh, why?”

“Because I can sell it for tons of money on the internet once you get famous, of course! Why would I collect an autograph from someone whom no one has heard of before? Certainly not to hang it on my room wall. But you can never be too sure, and in case you do happen to get famous in the future, I have the first autograph of you. TONS of money, I tell you!”

You could practically see the dollar signs in her eyeballs.

Also, ouch, that was harsh. Did people really forget me, just like that? Did I really leave such a tiny mark on history? Okay, Twilight, focus, everything will fall into place eventually. It always has.

"Well alright, I guess..."

"SWEET!" the captain exclaimed, handing me what looked like a holographic tablet. "I already took a photo of you, now just place your hoof there and done."

I already thought that mass surveillance on Earth was an outrageous breach of privacy, but this is just ridiculous. Perhaps the captain has a small camera embedded in her uniform, but still, it would have been nice if she were to ask if I even want my picture taken. But then again, I popped right into 3997, and Equestria itself has also changed a lot in 2000 years. With Princess Celestia and Luna gone since the Third Eternal Night, and then us meeting a species from another planet within our own universe, those changes are bound to be even more significant. And I'll find out about those changes sooner rather than later anyway, so it's probably wise to focus on what's important right now: Finding out what happened to my friends, the whereabouts of Sunset Shimmer and, most importantly, getting home. Or actually whatever of my home remains.

Speaking of which...

"Sublight in five, four, three, two, one, disengage Transist!" the computer announced. And with a sudden jolt that almost had me slamming into a nearby support pole, we came to a halt. Yes, technology did improve, but physics are still the same, apparently. And before I could recover from my shock, the captain approached me again, this time looking eerily happy. "Alright then, tell me where to send it and I'll transfer you your ticket money. Please pay me back as soon as possible, as agreed."

I took out my phone and levitated it over to her. Good to know my magic wasn't affected by my quite stressful day. And then technological progress came over to bite me in the flank.

"Uh, how do I use this?" the captain asked, eying the phone with a rather bewildered expression. Does she really not understand how to use something as simple as a phone? I thought technology had developed and with it the knowledge of the ponies and people on how to utilize it! But then again perhaps the concept of a 22nd century phone is alien to someone from the 40th...

No, stop right there, I really don't want to deal with something like this now, I just want to get home. Or sleep on a bench or whatever is available. So I asked if they had cash money on board, and after another half hour of explaining what cash is, I finally stood in the Candlelight's airlock, waiting to be let out onto the orbital space port, and with a gold ingot roughly worth 1000 credits in my possession.

While the notion of massive space stations already did exist when I left, it was just that: a notion. Not even a proof of concept existed. The most advanced space stations at that time were mostly nothing more than orbital laboratories tethered to the ground with space elevators made from carbon nanotubes. Sure, there were two space hotels, one around Earth and one around Equus, but these were prohibitively expensive, even for me, especially since neither one of them was equipped with such a space cable, requiring expensive launch vehicles and sequences. I even remember there being multiple accidents with these launch vehicles, six of them with no survivors, among them several government officials of both Equestrian and Terran origin. I don't even want to remember the political fallout from that, but the backlash for private spaceflight was immense, resulting in a multi-year ban on flights that weren't sanctioned by the TESA.

But, here is one in the flesh. As the airlock swung aside to reveal the exterior of the craft, I almost immediately noticed, beyond the hallway leading into the port's transit area, how much was going on here. Everywhere I looked, there were sentients both pony and human of all colors or ethnicities, robots, androids and even some species I have never seen before, walking to and fro, either to the shops lining the transit area, to the other nearby terminals or just sitting around on the many benches around the hall. It quickly reminded me of a very busy airport on Earth, however this one wasn't built out of concrete, but rather out of a white painted metal, and with the added bonus of being able to look up, left and right and seeing more floors with more people, ponies, stores and benches instead of a roof, with the people walking around the walls of this massive cylinder that was the transit area, with the lights bathing it in a light that felt both neutral and welcoming at the same time. I was ecstatic and really wanted to explore the station more, but then I noticed the holographic flight plan being projected into the air above me that announced a flight to Equus in just 2 1/2 hours. Better get my ticket, I can still explore after that. Maybe, this world isn't so different, after all...

***

"You're lucky, miss, one passenger jumped off at the last minute and you can take over his seat. Second class, section B2, that would be 587 Credits." the lady behind the check-in said, eyes focused on a screen. I levitated the gold ingot on the counter to pay.

"Uh, sorry miss, but that won't do. We only accept digital money, no physical goods. You can however sell that block of gold at the local market."

Great, now I can't even pay for something I would probably have enough money for. Being thrown head-first into cold water is rarely fun or pleasent, and this is certainly a case where it isn't.

After yet another two hours of opening a temporary bank account, since cash is apparently not just unknown with random space truckers but also with the entire economic system, obtaining a money management tool that would be compatible with my phone, and trying to find someone who would purchase gold, I finally got my ticket. Since there was so little time left, the lady was kind enough to just send me through the scanning system and then give me a warrant to enter the ship without proper identification, since I obviously had nothing on me. The stinky space suit and fighter I left with Starshine by way of pledge.

I rushed over to the crowd of people and ponies standing in a somewhat chaotic queue at Terminal 7 where our mass-transit ship was docked. The entire boarding process was rather mundane, as one after another was checked for a valid boarding pass and then directed to the tunnel that would lead them to the section of the ship they were assigned to. While I did notice the flight attendant looking somewhat skeptical as he inspected my ticket and warrant, he didn't start another argument with me, thank Celestia, and instead just held his validation device over it and gestured me through.

Another flight attendant greeted me at the airlock of ship section B2 and I went to my seat. The interior of the cabin once again reminded me of home, specifically airplanes. While there were no windows lining the walls, the rows of seats were divided into three sections of four seats each, going all the way to the back wall of the cabin.

As I approached my seat, I noticed a strange six-legged creature and a mare occupying the seats directly next to mine. Do I smell okay? I don't want to bother my seatmates with the stench of old and dry

vomit.

"Good morning, ladies, gentlemen, fillies and gentlecolts, I'm Captain Turbulence and contrary to what my name may imply, I'm known among my fellow pilots as one of the best in the business of mass-transit. I'll be taking you straight to Equus tonight. Flight time is an estimated 85 hours real-time, compressed to 9 hours on-board time, with three Transit jumps across a grand total of around 67,000 light years.

The second class cabins aren't equipped with gravity modules, so I would advise everyone in this class to remain seated and to keep their seatbelts on at all times except in emergencies, such as having to visit the toilet. Beyond that, the paths to the escape pods are marked by lights on the floor and smoking tobacco is not allowed anywhere on the ship. Consuming recreatives or alcohol is only permitted as per discretion of the stewards and only for substances sold on the ship.

For first-time passengers, this ship is equipped with dampening systems that offset the rockings resulting from de-transits, but you may still feel a slight jolt or a stinging sensation when the craft re-enters Realspace. Thank you to those who actually bothered to listen and the crew and I wish you a safe and enjoyable flight."

And with a slight rocking, we departed the station and commenced the jump, and I didn't even notice how exhausted I actually were, for too fast did I fall asleep.

***

"Captain Turbulence of Flight 4567-89A from Olympus to Cloudsdale Station, requesting landing clearance." the on-board speakers suddenly blared, waking me from my sleep.

"Good evening, this is Cloudsdale Station, permission granted. How was your flight, 89A?" another voice responded. "Everything fine so far, Cloudsdale, thanks. How do things look like from there?" I'm pretty sure the captain doesn't care about that.

"Oh, same old, same old. Black, with the occasional blue and green-ish." the second voice responded in a voice that tried hard to hide the apathy of the owner.

The captain finished with a quick "Right then, thank you and good day, Cloudsdale" and turned off the speakers. Finally, I'm getting home. Hopefully I'll get over this with no more repercussions. The ship docked, and the passengers made a standing ovation for the captain and slowly made their way to the airlock.

This starport had a massive window through which Equus was visible. It didn't look too different from what I've last seen, but there were noticably more lights scattered around its surface. Massive cities, perhaps?

Since it was my intention to leave the transit area for the planet surface this time, I would have to pass border control. Apparently something like the "United Systems" still wasn't enough to fully abolish those, though it could very well just be a safety precaution, and seeing as there were no ships set to fly to the surface anywhere in the transit area, I decided to wing it. Surely the authorites here will recognize me...

"Miss, we will need a valid ID, or we can't let you through. The core systems are protected and passage requires a valid ID coupled with a permit. If you do not have that, we'll have no other choice than to take you into custody for trespassing in protected territory."

WHAT? I became a princess for THIS?! I tried really hard to remain calm, but I knew I wouldn't be able to hold back the stress for much longer. Focus, Twilight, you can do this.

"I lost my ID when I conducted a time jump from the distant past to here, and then I got lost in space and had to work my way back here." I responded, hoping that it would work.

It didn't.

"Nice story, miss, it isn't the weirdest one I've heard yet. But no valid ID means we will have to lock you up for now, until we can verify your identity proper. GUARDS!" the Pony border officer behind the counter yelled. Immediatly two pegasus guards clad in airtight body armor came galloping into the room. I felt like irony was sitting in a cloud, laughing at me.

"Take this pony away, her identity couldn't be verified. We will have to keep her until tomorrow for questioning." the officer said to the guards.

Being too stressed out, I found myself both unable and unwilling to fight back, and a few minutes later, locked up in a dark prison cell, with the small window showing nothing but a few entirely emotionless stars in the distance.

Yes, it can always get worse.