Twilight was excited. She had, for a second time, been invited to speak at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. This time, she was going to explain how magic worked. It was a complex topic, and not completely understood even by the Princesses. But any good unicorn, even these foals, needed to know the basics.
"And now, to give a speech on the workings of magic, Princess Twilight Sparkle!" said the current speaker.
Twilight stepped out on the stage, carrying a single covered display board.
"Hello everypony, I'm so glad to be here to speak to you again. Now can anyone tell me how magic works?" she said in a kind, Fluttershy-esque voice. These were fillies and colts she was speaking to.
A little pink unicorn raised her hoof and shouted as loud as she could, "You scrunch up your face and your horn lights up and does stuff!"
"Like this?" asked Twilight, lighting her horn and summoning some fireworks.
The foals gasped collectively, and Twilight giggled a little at their amazement.
"You were right, but not exactly," she told the pink filly, "Let's take a closer look at magic."
The foals gasped again, wondering what the.....thing was. Twilight smiled, knowing that she had sparked their curiosity.
"This is what you see when you look at a unicorn's horn under a microscope," Twilight said, "It's an extremely tiny animal, completely different from everything else we know exists. It doesn't eat food, or sleep, and get this - it lives off electricity."
The foals feel silent as they contemplated what she had said, now thoroughly interested in the creature. But they couldn't understand the electricity bit.
A blue colt raised his hoof, "Pwincess Twiwight, what do you mean it wives off ewectwicity?"
Twilight could hardly contain her giggles and dawws at the colt's pronunciation, "Well, this creature needs electricity to survive. It conducts electricity through silicon. That's right, this animal is made of metal. It converts the electricity to magnetism and somehow uses that to move. Some think that it's powered by motors, but no living creature uses motors. Some others use electricity and are made of metal, like the thunderbird and metallic dragons, but no creature alive uses motors."
The foals once again fell silent, until one filly blurted out,
"Wait, what does this have to do with magic?"
Twilight smiled, "This creature is what makes magic possible. It's called the 'microscopic theory' Remember I was talking about electricity? This creature lives off the electricity from your body, ad also reads the electrical impulses in your brain. So when you want to levitate someone, these creatures go out by the millions and levitate it, because you give them electricity, so they give you magic. Technically, these creatures ARE magic, the literal magic itself, which is why they are named Magicum animal.
Teleportation is a bit more complicated. These creatures somehow tap into the fabric of the universe, and rip a hole to wherever we tell them we want to go. We don't actually have any idea how this is done or how it is possible. But it is, obviously, reality."
The foal's eyes seemed hazy and far-away, contemplating the incredible complexity of what they were being told. Twilight was pretty worried that they wouldn't understand it. This was the most complex scientific theory that had ever been set forth, the logic in magic.
The hoof of a young filly was tentatively raised, "Princess Twilight, how do you know all this stuff?"
"Well, like I said before, this is the image of unicorn magic under a microscope. Now, we had to use a highly advanced electron microscope to take these pictures. Magic does have its limits, after all. We can't see what the animals see, or see the individual organs of the animals themselves. But we can use them to build powerful microscopes, to then observe things. It's confusing, but very useful."
Suddenly a hoof shot up, "Princess! Princess! I think I've seen the magic animals before! But they aren't animals!"
Twilight giggled. She knew someone would be confused. The little foal probably thought it was an ant or something, "Where did you see it before?"
The colt (he was a colt) lowered his hoof and began speaking, "My daddy works at a think-tank. He and some other scientists built a really big electron microscope and caught one of the bugs, and looked at it, super up close. They think it's a robot!"
Twilight started at this, and stuttered, saying, "I-well, uh-yes, that is a.....competing hypothesis concerning the microscopic theory of magic. There are those who think that these microscopic creatures are actually robots, built by an ancient advanced non-pony civilization, possibly even aliens. This is called the precursor hypothesis."
A filly raised her hoof, "Who were they?!"
"Different archeologists, magical theorists, and historians think different things. It isn't necessarily non-pony, but the precursor pony hypothesis is highly discredited because, well, ponies haven't been around too long. Dragons, griffins, and zebras each had highly advanced civilizations long ago, and they are the most commonly cited precursor civilization. There is also the, er, 'human' hypothesis. It's complex....but it accounts for all holes in the other hypotheses. But all these precursor hypotheses aren't very substantial compared to the microanimal one. Both of them are consistent with the microscopic theory of magic."
The foals, instead of falling quiet, burst into conversation. Thoughts on the hypotheses and the theory as a whole were debated back and forth. Foals spoke of humans, dragons, and the smallest of magical creatures (and robots). Twilight was actually pretty proud to see young foals debating complex scientific theories, though they did present plenty of strawponies and other logical fallacies. But it was still a scientific debate.
Young foals, pushing the limits of magic, science, and history. It was so beautiful for Twilight to witness the next generation of scientists grow before her eyes. Some of these ponies would probably earn their cutie marks in this very field.
Magic was awesome.
Science was awesome.
