Apud Stellas Domus Nova

"Come on, just over the next rise!"

Porter Jade Sight, a gem-colored earth pony, wasn't as enthusiastic as Princess Twilight Sparkle was about this find they were trekking to get to. At the beginning of their journey, the princess’ enthusiasm and anticipation were infectious, but her energy had lasted far longer than the other members of this expedition. The fact that she now was just as insufferable as when they had set first foot on that train to get to the Badlands was wearing on Jade Sight's patience, just as it was surely wearing on the patience of the rest of the expedition,  which included many other porters and support staff, and even the Princess's friends. Underneath the harsh sun and the sweltering heat of the afternoon, everypony was feeling it. As their hooves crunched the arid ground, the senses of the ponies were assaulted by dust and the dry smell of the sagebrush and other assorted smells.

As long as Jade Sight got paid, he was willing to put up with it. Besides, the tents ought to be a nice reprieve while the overeager princess continued to overexert herself in a crater filled with rocks and space-dust. Let her worry about it. Meanwhile, Jade Sight would enjoy a cool drink in the shade of a tent.

That is, until he accidently stuck his snout in the Princess's tail on top of the sandy rise because he was too busy fantasizing to pay attention.

Jade Sight shook off some sand and made to apologise to the pony whose personal space he had accidentally invaded, but he stopped only when he noticed that Twilight Sparkle didn't really notice. Instead, she only stared at something in front of her, posture frozen. Her mouth was agape, and her eyes betrayed the shock she was experiencing.

What, did the space rock come down intact? There's no way a space rock hitting some desolate place could possibly be that...

Having clambered up to the rise beside Twilight Sparkle, and following her empty gaze, Jade Sight knew why.

That certainly wasn't a space rock.

It stood on two legs. It stood twice the height of even the princess. It wore a bulky full grey body suit with a brown long coat over the suit, which flapped in the wind. Its face was obscured by a full face visor of gold, and it returned the Princess's stare, itself equally as petrified by its encounter of us as we were of it.

What also wasn't a space rock was the... thing behind the biped. Jade Sight knew not what to make of it. It had wheel, like a wagon or cart, but they were too short and wide, and they were attached to what looked like legs. All of it was bony white, except the head of the thing, which watched them with all the warmth of a camera. The body of the second thing was boxy, giving the construction a very insect-like look, and it dwarfed the biped in size. The entire scene was all so mystifying.

The left arm of the biped slowly rose to hold the side of its head, and it held it there for a minute. Was it just Jade Sight, or was the biped talking to something? The biped’s stance shifted, and it took a step back. It seemed to want no more part of this than the ponies did.

Leave it to the princess to be the hero, though.

Twilight reached out to the biped, calling out, "Wait!"

The biped froze again. Jade Sight fought the urge to just grab the Princess and just leg it.

"Twilight..."

Applejack had just carefully moved up behind Twilight and was equally (if not more) nervous about the bipedal and the metal wagon as everypony else was. The biped had raised its hand to its head again, seemingly listening to something. Finally, its stance loosened, and it clambered over to the strange contraption, which tucked its wheels under itself and sat down, covering the six wheels with its boxy body. A long compartment running the length of the construct opened, and the biped withdrew a bundle of white rods. It then stuck the rods into the ground, and fiddled with it. It became obvious immediately as he worked that it was a tent, or some other kind of temporary shelter. As it laid the foundations of the tent, something incredible happened.

It raised itself, quickly becoming a long, wide, white, cylindrical tent, standing there as a defiance of normal tent-raising. Jade Sight didn't even bother to resist saying, "I want one," to the amusement of many ponies there.

With that, the ice was more or less broken. The ponies also set to work setting up their own camp. Clearing rubble, twigs, and rocks, the expedition in short order raised their own tents, albeit with a little envy for the biped, which even now withdrew with his steel cart into the tent.

Jade Sight could be envious all he wanted, but envy alone wouldn't be raising his tent. So, with a few stakes and a few knots, he was finally able to unshoulder his burden, lay out a sleeping cot, and take a nice, deserved nap in his tent.

In his exhaustion, Jade Sight couldn't care less about the interaction between the princess, her friends, and the biped. Sure, it was history in the making, but Jade Sight was a porter, not a diplomat.

Jade Sight awoke from his restful nap with a yawn and noticed that not only was he hungry, but there was a certain nice smell of something good cooking over a campfire. He also noticed an odd droning sound. Getting up on weary legs, Jade Sight poked his head out of his tent.

Sure enough, the sun was setting, and a broth bubbling by under the watchful eye of  Quartermaster Pinkie Pie. Say what you will about her behavior, but she did make a mean vegetable broth.

She also seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of fresh pastries, which Jade Sight was both thankful for and seriously bewildered by.

The biped wasn't among the ponies enjoying dinner. Instead, he sat in a folding chair that he had apparently brought along. He was facing the sunset, which, even here, in the middle of nowhere, was quite the sight to behold. As Jade Sight clambered out to get his fill, he was beset by good friends and food, the biped being completely forgotten. They traded stories, a bit of gossip, and even a bit of wild speculation. The joke theory that made everypony laugh the most was that the suit's biped actually held a colony of butterflies that worked together to move the suit around. They shared many jokes together, and to the Princess's chagrin, they teased her a little about not having learned the omniglot translation spell.

"I was going to get around to it, I swear!"

"That's what you keep saying, sugarcube."

As they shared another laugh, something caught the attention of the pony expedition.

Namely, the distant roar of fire.

Heads swiveled as ponies nearing the edge of panic tried to determine where it was coming from.

And if it actually sounded like any dragon breath they ever heard.

Finally, Pinkie pointed out something in the distance and yelled out, "Look!"

The ponies looked and saw a speck in the distance rising on a pillar of fire, right next to the setting sun. Ponies strained their eyes to.see it as it rose ever higher and higher, and they all lined up beside the reclining biped. Twilight finally got out a telescope and got a better look at the object. She gasped and said, "It's a rocket!"

Pinkie Pie, squinting her eyes and leaning forward, asked, "It doesn't look like any firework I've ever seen!"

Applejack nodded, then said, adjusting her stetson, "Eeyup. It's making too much noise going up, especially for how far away it is."

Twilight bit her lip and ran her telescopic sight over the rising bleach-white object. Both her eyes went wide.

"Girls, I think we can hear it from here because that rocket is huge."

Fluttershy peeked from behind her hair and asked Twilight, "H-How big, now?"

Twilight cleaned the glass on her instrument and said, "This can't be right, b-because it's almost as if it's as big as a... skyscraper in Manehatten."

Rarity fainted, but the ponies barely took notice as they themselves imagined a rocket of that sheer size. Rainbow Dash was the first to ask, "W-What would you need a rocket that big for?"

As the rocket continued to press ever higher, Twilight realized something.

"It's trying to go into space."

Applejack's eyes crossed a little, then she asked, "Well, what would you need to go there for? It's just stars and void-stuff, right?"

Twilight turned to look at the biped in the chair, who had not broken eye contact with the space-bound rocket. It held itself at ease, almost as if regarding the thing with pride.

"Girls, I think we're making contact with an alien race,” the princess said.

She looked around energetically, searching for her things. She took off, her meal having been forgotten.

”Spike! Take a letter..."

The next morning was a somber affair. The ponies stood on one side, and the alien with his self-propelled cart on the other. They both stood in awe of the other, each sapient, fully understanding the weight and scale of what had happened here. Now, each was waiting for delegates of their own kind to arrive. The alien's delegate arrived first. Three giant metal boxes with rounded corners and windowed fronts on those same strange wheels rolled up, unbidden and towed by unseen internal forces, and parked themselves behind the smaller construct. More bipeds poured out of hatches in the back. They wore different suits than the first, bulkier and with a bigger round helmet, but they were still sterile white, the same as their vehicles and that smaller cart thing, with red stripes running across their suits. They also carried some kind of weapon in their hands, albeit ones that were just as alien as they were. Twilight was reminded of some sort of steel crossbows that had missing arms. The last three bipeds to leave the vehicles wore the same suit as the soldiers but had purple stripes on their suits instead of red. They also came bearing cases instead of the weapons their soldiers carried. They lined up in front of the ponies and seemed to converse with the brown-coat biped, and they all bode their time.

They did not have to wait long, though, as the Royal Guard arrived, towing a carriage. The bipeds looked on in awe and confusion.

'That makes sense,' Twilight thought. 'We were awfully confused by them and their contraptions. It is only natural that they beas confused by us as we are of them.'

To Twilight's surprise, Princess Celestia herself climbed out of the carriage, and she bore saddlebags, as did the two other scholarly ponies that accompanied her. She fought back the desire to rush up to Celestia to greet her, as this was far too important to be flighty now. The guards ponies brandished their spears and made the other half of the perimeter that the bipeds enforced.

In complete silence, the delegates of both races marched towards each other. They met in the middle, in a sort of no-man's-land, where only the sagebrush and wild grass were. In complete silence, they bowed towards each other, mutually signalling to the other that they were here peacefully. They also silently offered up gifts to the other, like trinkets, tomes, and strange alien devices. After this was done, they bowed to each other again, and they parted ways, each obviously intending to fuss and read over the things that were just traded.

The exchange had gone smoothly, and Twilight let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. As relief.washed over her, even now Twilight suspected that contact with this race had only just begun.