Pathfinder 5

Pathfinder 5

Chapter 18: The News Flash Report

Visitor from the Stars by News Flash

To all my readers old and new, I have written stories for years. I have written about corruption, the famous, the poor, major events, and all other manner of stories. I have tried to write this article several times because in all honesty, this will most likely be one of my greatest moments I’ve written about. One of the greatest questions in existence has finally been answered.

Are we alone in the universe?

Yes our world is home to many races but I have met a special individual that is not from our world.

That’s right, we have been visited by an actual alien being from the stars. I know that you are all skeptical, I was too when I heard the stories. Following a lead to Ponyville I found that the stories were true. The picture seen with this article is of the alien being known as [David] and his ship. (Pictured right)

You can see him along with one Twilight Sparkle who helped me with this interview as he was still learning our language. I have to admit that it was hard to know where to start with this article. I supposed I’ll start with the ship. It a word it was amazing, it was like nothing else I’ve ever seen before. The outside was built in such a way that it was hard to tell how it was put together. The inside was even more amazing with controls that floated in the air like a magical image only interactive. The ship even talked with apparently an intelligent computer. Everything about it is so well made and made beyond anything I believe our world can make.

We talked in what looked to be the cockpit of the ship as I got to know him. So here I was sitting with an actual alien being. There were and still are so many more questions I wanted to ask and I wasn’t sure where to start. So I asked him to tell me his story, why was he here and what where his plans?

It turns out that he is an explorer of his race, they send out explorers to find safe paths to other systems and also to explore a little of the planets they find in order for the rest of his race to know where to start looking for resources or places to set up colonies. I was shown various images of the planets he had seen. So many alien worlds, skies that were not blue, worlds that had more than one sun or even more than one moon, they were the images that normally I would expect to see in sci-fi novels.

But here I was looking at worlds that are out there among the stars. I can’t describe what that moment felt like, it was like some pony had opened a doorway to the heavens and I was given a brief look at what was out there. He showed me images of his world a place called Earth. Yes, Earth as in Earth Pony. It is an odd coincident that apparently they had only just been able to translate the word for his world into our language. Of course he explained there were other words such as one called [Terra] but every pony just calls it Earth apparently although the word in their language is [Earth].

Still as we talked I got the sense that this being was here on friendly terms, he seemed just as curious about us as we were about him.

Now I know what some of you might be thinking, how can something like this happen under the government’s notice? Well it hasn’t.

Apparently both Princesses were here to greet our alien visitor, but I have to ask why haven’t they told us about this? They didn’t seem to be hiding the alien but they weren’t telling us about it as well. Where they hoping to keep this quiet for some time or did they just want to ensure that our guest wasn’t swarmed with ponies trying to get a look at him or ask him questions. Honestly I can see that second one happening, I just know all my fellow reporters at the release of this will want to interview him as well.

I really hope that this article at least forces an official response because this is a major event and I believe that an official word from our Princesses might help calm the more excitable of our fellow ponies.

Although many will fear this great unknown but we shouldn’t fear it we should embrace it. He is here now and this is an amazing time, ponies for years will ask where were you when you learned we weren’t alone in the universe? When were you when the alien landed? What did you do when you learned about it? Personally I’m excited for this, we are living in a time when history will be written about this moment. This is the day when everything changes and I have no idea where this will take our world but I look forward to it and writing about it.

-Canterlot Throne Room-

Celestia finished reading the article, she knew it was only a matter of time before the news got out. It looked like that prepared statement she had finished earlier would have to go out today. Currently she was waiting for Luna to finish her own copy as her sister was next to her reading the same article.

“I don’t like how this reporter seemed to insinuate we’re keeping secrets.” Luna finally spoke up.

“Well we were,” Celestia said with a shrug.

“I know but it’s the insinuation that I don’t like, he should have just come out and say it,” Luna put away the paper. Reporters was something she had to get used to, plus something called the ‘paparazzi’ when she returned. She did like reading about things not from some kind of official report but some of the more gossip types of articles she didn’t care for.

Celestia took a moment to think on her plans for this, “If I’m not mistaken there is going to be a lot of ponies coming here asking about this.”

“Nobles as well as others from the higher class, government officials as well. I can see ministers of defense, foreign policy, Science and Technology, Magic and Trade just off the top of my head.”

“Plus all the ambassadors.” Luna chimed in.

“We are going to be busy,” Celestia was thankful that Cadence was here to help out with all of this. “So do you want the ambassadors or the Ministers?”

Luna thought about it for a moment, “I’ll handle the ambassadors. I don’t like a few of those Ministers and I think the feeling is mutual.”

“Is this about Minister DeMoney’s party?” She asked.

“I wasn’t even invited,” Luna seethed at the memory of the slight.

“It was your first year back it could have been an oversight.” Celestia offered although she too didn’t like the fact her little sister hadn’t been invited. Luna was just as much a ruler as she was and deserved the same respect.

Luna huffed as she turned her head, she wasn’t one to forgive a slight lightly.

Celestia tried to change the subject, “So how are the meetings with our alien friend going in his dreams?”

Although Luna knew what her elder sister was doing, this was actually a more interesting subject for her so she went along with it. “It’s going very well actually. There is so much to see, the giant colonies they’ve built in space, their home world, the few colonies they’ve made in space plus all the worlds he’s visited. There is just so much out there.”

Even though she was the Princess of the Night and controlled the moon, she had never really thought about the stars in the night sky. They were beyond her control and although she knew each and every constellation like the back of her hoof, seeing some of those stars up close and personal and the worlds they had was an eye opening experience.

If she wasn’t needed here she was very tempted to explore the stars herself. Perhaps one day she could but that was a long way off. Thankfully she had time to wait for that day to happen.

Celestia sighed, “Must be nice to see all that, I don’t suppose you would consider inviting me into one of these dreams sometime?”

Although Celestia couldn’t dream walk like Luna, she did know that her younger sister could pull others into dreams.

Luna made a show to think about it, “I don’t know, I do so enjoy the time I have with him and I don’t want to crowd his mind.”

“Luna,” Celestia pouted at her. Normally she had to keep up the appearance of a ruler but with just her sister here she could just be herself. Besides after hearing all the things she had been seeing in his mind she was very curious herself to see them. Just the descriptions Luna gave here were mind boggling.

Entire habitats built in space, buildings that go into the clouds and beyond, machines that can be implanted into the body or even replace limbs, ships that travel constantly from their colonized worlds to stations and back again? That was only the tip of the iceberg, when you lived as long as she and her sister did, things could get a bit stagnant.

Granted she had watched her ponies create new forms of art, literature, media and inventions but it was a slow progress at times. Seeing all sorts of wonders for the first time, it would be like when they were both young and the world was fresh and new to them.

“Fine,” Luna relented from teasing her any further. “Tonight I’ll grab you from your dream and we’ll visit together.”

“Thank you Luna,” She smiled as there was a knock on the front doors to the hall.

“Enter,” Celestia called out as the door opened by her guards and several ministers came into the room. Behind them was a lot of ponies all shouting out questions as the guards tried to keep some sort of order present.

“I think I’ll go visit the ambassadors now,” Luna commented. “Be brave sister.”

Celestia let out a small sigh as she sat up straight and regal looking as she put on her ‘game face’ of Princess of the Sun. Just by the looks of things it was going to be a long day for her. She hoped Luna had better luck with her own meetings.

-Sparrow I –

If someone were to look at David at this moment you would think he was sleeping as he was in the pilot seat with it reclined back. What in reality was happening was that he was interfacing with his implant to the ships computer. The headrest had an interface for implants as it was currently linking up with the latest in the translation matrix.

Unfortunately because of the limits of the human body and technology this was a slow process to do. It took time for the information to be basically injected into a brain. Despite all their advancements the human brain was still a very complex piece of biological machinery. If you tried to force too much information too quickly you ran some major health risks. In the early days there had been experiments to see how much could safely be put into a brain, plus there were always stories of people hacking their own implants to remove the safeties to push the boundaries.

These usually led to things like brain damage, seizures, a nasty medical problem called neural collapse which causes the nervous system to start shutting down and of course some just got their brains fried to either a vegetable or just plain old death.

So that was why he had spent the last six hours in the chair as the matrix was slowly and safely put into his mind. He had been doing this periodically with every update the computer could make to it and it was making things so much easier to talk with the natives. Having Princess Luna giving him direct translations was a huge help. The only problem was staying still for the whole process, so he made audio logs on his discoveries, called up a virtual screen over head to start on figuring out the math of this solar system and why it wasn’t adding up.

He really didn’t want to put ‘magic’ as the X factor but he was running out of options at this point.

That was another thing, this whole magic thing was just a hard pill to swallow. He was a man of science and there had to be a scientific explanation behind it all. Sure he admitted that the natives had abilities that on the surface flew in the face of both reason and all the science he knew but there had to be more to it.

From what Twilight explained there was some serous math behind it, once he got a bit more familiar with their sciences and language he was going to have a long sit down with her as she explained it in more detail. At the moment he was going to classify it as Psycho-Kenetic Energy, why?

Honestly just because it sounded cool.

Hell he found it, he could name it whatever the hell he wanted to. At least until the people back home could figure out either a better term for it or just agreed to keep the name.

So with this P.K.E. as he was also naming it, he was hard at work trying to get the sensors to be adjusted in order to study this phenomenon. Thankfully he had a lot of data by this point but although Twilight said that this…magic…was everywhere the scanners could only detect it when it was in a large enough quantity for some reason.

One example had been when he asked Rainbow Dash to get a cloud so he could take a closer look at how a Pegasus did it. She brought one down to him and even stood on it like it was solid. David tried putting his hand on the cloud but it just went through. That was another thing, the cloud remained a cloud even at ground level. So he scanned it but the result wasn’t very illuminating. He could detect a slight energy reading but not in the detail he wanted.

When he tried to get a scan of Earth Pony ‘magic’ well, that didn’t show up at all. It was only the Unicorns and he guessed the Alicorns that drew the most of this energy in the amount that his equipment could pick up. At least for the moment, he was not going to give up on this just yet.

“Download complete.” The computer told him as the chair slowly rose up.

David groaned as he rubbed his head feeling the slight pounding there. Long downloads like that were common to give you headaches unfortunately. He got up and went to get some simple painkillers from the medical room. Nothing powerful just some simple over the counter stuff, after downing that he looked at the time. He had spent a lot of the afternoon doing the download but there was still some time left in the day.

He got some of his gear, mainly his scanner glove, a couple of tools in a small pouch that he connected to his belt and clipped a small empty pouch to the other one. He grabbed a few of the books he had been loaned as well as a small empty pouch just in case he needed to carry something back with him. With everything set he was on his way.

David walked down the ramp and could already see some of the Ponies still looking at his ship. Some were trying not to be obvious about it but he could tell they were still looking. The door closed behind him as the last thing he needed was some curious individual getting it in their heads to look inside the alien ship and touch all the interesting bits.

That last part was the reason why he had AVI lock out most of the controls except for the bare basics like door controls whenever someone else was on board. Having a certain set of curious kids or a curious unicorn in one instance mess with his controls was enough for him to put that safety check in place.

He walked through the lush grassy field waving to anybody that gave him a warm greeting. He was surprised by how quickly they were getting to be friendlier with him. Either he picked the right place to land or maybe it was something about their race that made them like that. If it was the latter then this whole first contact should go fairly well as well as any future contact.

David made his way when he heard a sound of wings flapping in his direction. He looked up in time to see Rainbow Dash landing next to him.

“Hey there [David], what’s up?” She asked him.

“Just going to return books to Twilight,” He explained.

Dash blinked a moment, “Wow, you’re getting a lot better at talking.”

“Thanks, just finished hours of, well I think you could call it ‘studying’ but I don’t know the right word.” He shrugged as certain words he just hadn’t come across yet, so saying ‘downloading’ was a bit out of the way for the moment.

“No wonder you and Twi get along, you’re both nerds.” He grinned at him letting him know she was just kidding around.

“Yeah well nerds rule.”

“Yeah right, jocks rule.” She fired back.

“Well kind of bit of both I am,” He mentally winced at that sentence. It didn’t found right but at least he wasn’t searching for words the entire time. A few more downloads and he should be pretty close to normal speech with them.

“Yeah you do seem kind of fit, at least I think you are. Kind of hard to tell with all the clothing on and that, well you know. You’re an alien and junk.” She shrugged as they continued to walk on together.

David then looked down at himself, although he was pretty fit he had been so busy lately that he hadn’t done any exercises. “Actually I might start to go running in the morning. Been busy lately and let slack off.”

Dash perked up at that, “Oh? Well if you want you can join me and AJ. We usually get together for some running a few days a week to keep in shape. She’s one the few that can keep up with me after all. We were going to go for a run tomorrow morning when the sun came up so if you want you can meet us at her place.”

David thought it over and he was interested to see how fast they could run, “Sound good, meet there.”

“Awesome I’ll go tell AJ then, see ya around,” and with that she flew off in a streak of colors towards the farm.

David walked on as he came to what he had learned was the not only Twilight and Spike’s home but the town library. It was a literally tree that was turned into a building, which was odd and not just because of how they had done it, but that it was the only building in town that was like that. It was like someone had made this as some kind of experiment years ago and just left it alone after one try. It had windows all over the place at varying levels so from the outside you couldn’t really tell how many floors it had inside, plus what looked like a telescope poking out and a small patio by one of the higher windows.

There was a simple sign out front as he went to the only door. He tried the doorknob as it opened so he guessed the place was still on working hours or did she even lock up because she kept the place open? He mentally shrugged as he had to duck down a bit to enter, thankfully the inside was a lot taller than he was so he could move around comfortably.

“Anypony home?” He called out as he really wondered about that word. He didn’t know what he had been saying at first but now it felt weird saying ‘anypony’ instead of ‘anybody’. He had been just mimicking things before but now he was noticing a lot of things that were like play on words or puns compared to his language. At either rate he was sure that the people back home who were going to study this alien language would have some theories on that.

There was a quick muffled call came out followed by quickly running hooves but they seemed to be coming from below. He jumped when a trap door in the floor opened up and Twilight came excitedly out of what apparently was a basement.

[David !] she happily said his name. “I wasn’t sure you were coming today, you said something about doing some work so I wasn’t sure how long it would be.”

“Yeah took while but now over,” he placed down the books. “Return these.”

“Oh good I can put them back,” She magically took the books and put them in their places. “Actually if you’re going to take more books I have something for you.”

“What?” He asked wondering what she had planned she looked really giddy about something.

“Just wait,” she went to a drawer and pulled something out. “I made this especially for you.”

She levitated a small rectangular piece of paper as he took he plucked it from the air as it got close enough. He looked it over, he could read some of the words by this point although it had his name spelled out in both the alien language and his own.

“It’s your very own library card!” She said excited as she sat down and threw up her front hooves in excitement.

David had to grin at how excited she got at such simple things, she really was possibly the biggest nerd he had ever met but she was also very adorable and she was extremely helpful in everything. So he smiled at her as he put the card into one of his pockets.

“Thanks, so what doing down there?” He asked her.

“Oh, I was organizing my notes on our interactions, plus all my observations so far, not to mention my work on your language. Oh that reminds me,” she cleared her throat as she started to say something in English. [How am doing with talk? Am I do better?]

“Not bad,” he nodded impressed by her talent in learning English. Again he couldn’t help but wonder if she had an implant she would have been fluent by now, in time she most likely would be able to talk in English no problem. She had this nearly freakish ability to nearly memorize something at first look. Hell that was a natural talent he wished he had, school would have been so much easier back in the day.

“How close?” She asked him.

“Think you meant to say,” he switched to English. [How am I doing with talking? Am I doing better?]

“Oh okay,” She said as she got this slight look of concentration on her face.

David had a feeling that she had taken that simple line of dialogue and had locked it away in the vault he guessed her mind was. “So where Spike?”

“Down here,” the dragon’s voice called out from below.

David looked down the hatch as he could see a larger area under the tree and just make out Spike among a lot of machines and notes. “How are you?”

“Oh you know Twilight has me helping her out, oh Twilight?” He called up.

“Yes?”

“Did you want the notes on his ship with the technology pile or do you want them separate?”

Twilight thought about it, “Keep it separate for now Spike. I may need to start putting all the technology notes into subcategories.”

“Got it.”

“Mind if I take a look?” David asked her.

Twilight perked up at that,” Yes please I would love your insight.”

She led the way down the stairs as he followed. He had to maneuver himself a little to get through the hatch part as there wasn’t much clearance between the stairs and the hatch. After a few stairs he could slowly start to stand up a bit as he got closer to the floor. When he got there he finally got a good look at things.

There were some roots here and there but not as much as you would expect being under a large tree. There were some books in shelves but what caught his attention were the large machines that looked like some of it was put together from odd parts. The other half looked to be straight out of some old sci-fi films, like something from the ancient black and white days with overly large parts that you couldn’t exactly tell what it was supposed to do.

Although this did help him get a slight insight to the level of technology that they had, they obviously had some kind of computing technology but it had to be very primitive. The rest of the room held all kinds of papers, pictures and drawings. He could see papers he had first sent her in one portion of the place and another area held drawings of his ship with notes around the images.

He had to admit it was like walking into the lab of a mad scientist that was also a conspiracy nut, all be it one that was highly organized. For a brief moment David was wondering if Twilight was just really organized or had a form of OCD.

David moved to one of the desks as he looked through the notes, he could read some of it but it was like trying to read something with only ever other word making sense. He could muddle the meaning of some of it but some words were just a complete mystery to him.

“I might need some help with this,” David had to admit to her.

“Oh right, it’s easier for you to talk Equestrian than reading it huh?”

He nodded his head, “Still learning but still lot to learn.”

“Yeah but I know with Twilight’s help you’ll get it in no time,” Spike offered. “She helps me all the time with some of the larger words she has me write out.”

“Actually I had few things to talk about,” David found a place on a very sturdy table to sit down. “Was hoping to run experiments on what you call magic and set up devices to help look around.”

“Look around, like those flying machines?” She asked remembering the drones.

“Not exactly, look into planet to see what made of,” he was hoping to start a geological survey of the planet. The scanners could only go so far after all when they were on the surface. The special equipment he had was for deep surveys so he was hoping to find out more about the makeup of the planet.

“Oh that shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” Twilight nodded her head.

“Great, just one other problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Noticed that you have small coins, uh…bits was word?”

“Yes bits,” she nodded.

“Okay well I was thinking of getting fresh food and other items but would need to pay for them.” He had been thinking on this and had done the math with the computer. If he got some fresh food he would be able to extend his stay on the planet without having to dig into his food stores which while there was still plenty off, it was a limited supply.

“Oh well I can lend you some money it shouldn’t be a problem,” Twilight wasn’t really the type that needed lots of it, she had saved plenty as Celestia’s student after all. She also made a small amount as librarian for the town, although that last one she only agreed to take the minimum pay as she would have done it for free but the mayor insisted as that’s just how things were done before the last librarian had retired a few years before Twilight came to town.

David thought about it at first but he was never one for charity. His father although rich never spoiled his children by giving them everything they needed. He raised them to earn what they wanted and he had to agree with his father’s way of thinking. He knew plenty of rich kids that were spoiled rotten, he never could get along with people like that.

It was one of the reasons he avoided going into the family business, he hated that superficial world.

“Is there way to earn it, or maybe trade?” He asked her as he really hoped he didn’t start something like with the Native Americans trading away land and such for shiny things or worse, weapons. He would have to talk with the Princesses on that one, from what he saw these people didn’t need weapons.

“Maybe, there should be something you can trade for it, plus I’m sure my friends would have some ideas.”

“Maybe he could help me and Rarity with her gem collecting?” Spike offered. “He said he could look into the ground, well maybe he could use that to help speed things up?”

Twilight’s eyes lit up as she picked up Spike, “That’s a great idea, see, this is why you’re my number one assistant.”

Spike beamed at the praise just glad to help out really.

David couldn’t help but smile at the two of them, it was really hard to pin down their relationship. He didn’t know their full story but apparently they had been together for a long time. They were obviously very close that mush he could tell. He got off his spot as he dusted himself off and looked at the piles of papers.

“Good, so where start?” He asked her.

Next up Chapter 19: My Day with Ponies