The Chamber of Wisdom evoked Croupton's constant aspirations towards further greatness. It stood atop the tallest tower of the Planetary Science Complex, every part of it tall and thin, stretching ever higher towards the stars. Within, a single blue-coated unicorn stood before the Crouptonian Council of Research, gazing up at the planet's nine greatest minds. The Chief Researcher, his beard draping down past his barrel, sat at the center of the arc and looked down upon him. "Do you know why you are here today, Dr. Wreath?"
"I believe so, Chief Researcher Brainiac," said Laurel Wreath. "I take it this is about the paper I submitted?"
Brainiac nodded. "Indeed it is. Would you please summarize it for those members of the Council who have not yet had the chance to read it?"
"It details the long-term environmental effects of direct mana taps—"
The rest of the Council went into an uproar, drowning out Laurel.
"Preposterous!"
"Ludicrous!"
"Silence!" Brainiac rapped his hoof against the sound block set into the surface of the nine-pony dais until he got some. "You will all show the respect and decorum expected from your prestigious positions."
"But Chief Researcher," said Solar Spectrum, Councilpony of Energy, "direct mana taps are specifically designed not to have any environmental effects! They're essentially giant unicorn horns."
Brainiac glared at her for several seconds. "I am fully cognizant of the mechanics behind the foundation of our energy infrastructure, Councilpony Spectrum. I would not have asked Dr. Wreath here if I felt he was going off on a fool's errand." He turned back to Laurel. "Go on."
"Thank you, sir. The councilpony is largely correct. However, I've always suspected that truly clean energy on that level is too good to be true. Call me a pessimist, but I believed that the Tanstaafl Principle would still hold true."
"'Tanstaafl'?" said Brainiac, furrowing his brow.
"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch," said Phantom Zone, Councilpony of Aeronautics. "I didn't know you were ever in Spacefleet, Dr. Wreath."
Laurel allowed himself a small smile. "That would be my wife, sir. Corps of Engineers." He grew serious once more. "In any case, after months of theoretical models and practical tests, all of my results came to the same grim conclusion. We have nearly a billion standard hornpower units worth of mana taps in use on and around Croupton. A billion horns constantly channeling magic. As we expand across our solar system and beyond, that number is going to rise exponentially, but we have already passed a grim threshold. Esteemed councilponies, I fear we are now consuming magic faster than the universe can produce it."
The uproar resumed until Brainiac beat it back into submission. "Explain yourself, Dr. Wreath. The universe is vast. Even now, as we expand beyond our homeworld, we are but a mote of dust."
"Only on a cosmic scale. The fabric of reality has a constant output of energy per cubic meter per second. For most of our history, we used only a slim fraction of that power. But now, with mana taps, we are using orders of magnitude more magic than before. We are sucking the cosmos around us dry."
"And do you have any proof of this?" sneered the Councilpony of Meta-Academics.
Laurel raised an eyebrow. "That would be in the paper I submitted, Councilpony Tower."
Ivory Tower scoffed the scoff of a pony who has graduate students for such base tasks as reading things. "And why haven't the mana taps shown any decreased efficiency? Indeed, why hasn't any magic? You're making it sound like pegasi should be falling out of the sky!"
"They won't, but the reason why is the true catastrophe. Magic from elsewhere in the universe constantly fills the vacuum left by our consumption, but as our usage continues to outpace production, we pull in magic from further and further afield. The force of suction increases every day. Eventually, the velocity of approaching magic will pass the speed of light, rendering our planet, perhaps our entire solar system, indistinguishable from an octarine hole." Laurel took a deep breath. "The way things are going, it's only a matter of time."
"I see." Brainiac shut his eyes. "I'm afraid the Council cannot support or publish these sensationalist findings."
Laurel fell onto his haunches, gazing up at Brainiac with a haunted look in his eyes "What?"
"Tell me, Dr. Wreath, if your conclusions were accurate, how much time would we have until this catastrophe?"
"A-about a month."
Brainiac gave a grim nod. "And is there anything we could do to stop it before then? Anything reasonable? Simply shutting down the mana taps would mean the end of civilization as we know it. Even fusion would only provide a paltry fraction of our energy needs."
Laurel's eyes darted about as his thoughts raced. "Well, there's, uh, there's always antimatter."
"Which we have never developed beyond curiosities and weapons too terrible to use, for mana taps are far safer." Brainiac heaved a deep sigh and shook his head. "No, releasing this information would panic the public with no possible benefit. A good thing, then, that it isn't true."
"I..." Laurel took a shuddering breath. "I see. Good day, councilponies." He turned to go, his head hung low.
Brainiac's voice boomed behind him. "Dr. Wreath!"
He looked back. "What?"
"These... worrisome conclusions were clearly the cause of relying too heavily on independent research. If there is anything the Council of Research can do for you, you have but only to ask."
Laurel just stared for a moment before nodding. A hint of a smile played on his lips. "I understand, Chief Researcher. Thank you."
The Council watched him leave through the telepad opposite the dais. Brainiac looked at each of his colleagues in turn. “What I am about to say does not leave this room, but fillies and gentlecolts, it has been an honor to work with you. I suggest you all make peace with Plao."
The first thing Laurel saw when he rematerialized in his home was his wife's face, which fell as soon as she saw his. "No good?"
He shook his head. "You were right, Cara. I was so focused on the revelation that I never thought about what to do with it."
Caravel put an orange wing over his withers and walked him into their apartment's living room, full of the rounded, cushioned furniture they'd chosen for a very important reason. "Because you're a theoretician," she said. "You have the ideas; it's my job to figure out how we can use them."
"Can it even be used? The Council of Research didn't have any more ideas than we did, and they're keeping it under wraps." Laurel slumped onto one of the couches. "Frankly, they're probably right to do so."
"They thought about it for what, all of two minutes? You can't let the scope of the problem overwhelm you."
Laurel didn't even turn his head. "Can't I? We are literally talking about the end of the world!"
Caravel glared down at him, wings flared. "You listen to me, Laurel Wreath. You may well be the smartest stallion on this rock, and you have an incentive none of the greybeards on the Council have."
Laurel couldn't help but think that over half of the councilponies were mares, but he knew what Caravel meant. He got up and moved to the bassinet hovering in the corner of the room, and the swaddled foal sleeping within. She looked so much like her mother, but she had his purple eyes. Laurel leaned in and gently nuzzled his sleeping daughter.
"It's one thing to fight for the world or the people," Caravel said softly as she walked to his side. "It sounds good, but it's too abstract. The equine mind can't properly process something so huge. But you have something concrete to fight for. If you don't figure this out, Collision Risk will never get her cutie mark, or fly, or even speak. And I know you're going to fight for her with every fiber of your being."
"But how? There's no escape from the magical singularity." Laurel slumped to a sitting position, eyes shut. "We can't teleport outside of the solar system; nopony's ever been that far out. Even if we could throw a generation ship together in the time we have left, there wouldn't be enough after that to get out of range. There's just nowhere to go." His eyes snapped open. "Or is there?"
"Is there?"
Laurel bolted to his hooves. "I—"
"Shh!" Caravel jerked her head towards Collision Risk, who was stirring in her sleep.
Both were silent until she went still again, Laurel taking the time to mull over his inspiration. "I may have an idea," he said more softly. He floated a sketch tablet in front of him, removed the stylus, and scribbled a design along the electronic surface. He flipped it around to face Caravel. "Do you think you could build this?"
She glanced over it, mentally filling in the details he hadn't thought to include as she did so. "Of course. It's basically an escape pod. But I'm not familiar with this drive system."
"It's not a drive system. Not exactly." Laurel passed the tablet to her and trotted towards one of the walls.
Caravel tucked the tablet under a wing and followed. "Then what is it?"
"No time! No time!" Laurel hissed. He trotted as quietly as he could to the wall-mounted videophone and entered a sending frequency.
A young mare soon appeared on screen. "Council of Research restricted access line. How may I help you?"
"Tell Councilpony Closed String that Dr. Laurel Wreath is going to need the use of the space-time telescope."
The secretary started typing. "When and for how long?"
"Immediately and indefinitely."
She paused in mid-keystroke. "This is very irregular, sir," she said as she worked the Delete key.
"The Council of Research promised me whatever I needed." Laurel glared into the screen. "I need this."
The mare visibly swallowed. "I'll... I'll forward your request right away, sir. May I ask what you're looking for?"
Laurel couldn't help but grin. It sounded ridiculous even in his head. "I'll know it when I see it."
The space-time telescope was a marvel of the modern age, a collection of such incredibly sensitive apparatuses that the majority of the device was kept more than a mile underground. The access console itself had a massive central screen and enough computing power to rival anything on the commercial market. Put together, it could peer across possibility and reveal any number of alternate worlds.
"No."
Sadly, "alternate" was a relative term.
"No." Chin in his hoof, Laurel pressed a button, and the view shifted another micron along the fifth dimension, revealing a Croupton that was just as doomed, but with many more silly hats. "No."
Another shift. Laurel looked at a female version of himself, staring back while seated at a familiar console. "No."
Another. Nothing but static. The collapse had already happened there. Even if there had been anything to see, there was too much interference from the magical singularity to see it. Laurel grit his teeth. "No!"
He took a deep breath. Searching sequentially clearly wasn't the way. Anything nearby, anything relatively easy to access, would be just as doomed as this world. But the further afield he went, the more power it would take and the less likely the timeline would be able to support equine life.
Laurel took a deep breath, accessed the telescope's internal protocols, and started putting together a random skip function. "Plao guide my hoof," he muttered as he returned to view mode. He pressed the button again.
The view before him was like something out of a history text, or a tale for foals. Enormous stretches of wilderness. The barest rudiments of industrialization. No mana taps of any sort beyond unicorn horns, nor would there be for centuries at minimum.
He smiled. "It's perfect."
Caravel frowned as her delicate pinions ran the plasma torch across the outer shell of the escape capsule. Over the last week, the living room had lost most of the padded furniture, making way for a small Council-provided workshop: nano-assembler, Turnip-complete spell matrix, the basics. "When you say perfect..."
"Environmentally, culturally, technologically, every parameter you could think of. Sure, the local cosmology boggles the mind, but it's everything we could ask for."
“And she’ll be safe?” One more swipe, and Caravel finished another seal in the capsule's polished cylindrical outer shell.
Laurel hesitated for a moment before saying, “She’ll certainly survive."
Caravel glared at him, still holding the torch. "Laurel, what are you going to do to my baby?"
The words tumbled out of him. "The magical field of that world has a notably higher frequency. Pony magic still functions as we understand it—indeed, there's at least one example of a subspecies I'd never seen before—but Collision's personal magic will retain the lower frequency of our universe."
Caravel put down the tool. “So, what, in this higher frequency world, she’ll be some kind of... of superpony?”
“Just the opposite, I’m afraid. The two waveforms will generate a destructive interference effect that will impede her magic. She might never fly. There's..." Laurel clamped his mouth shut, but the horrified look on Caravel's face told him it was best to finish the thought before she filled in the blanks with something worse. "There's a nonzero chance she won't be able to get a cutie mark."
She put her forehooves to her mouth. “Oh, Laurel…”
“But she’ll live! She will live, and our people will live through her. So will we, in a sense.”
Caravel managed a smile. "Done with the computer core, then?"
Laurel nodded, hoisted a squat black cylinder about the size of Collision in his magic, then passed it to Caravel. "AIs templated with our engrams, along with most of Crouptonian culture and knowledge, with an petabyte or two to spare should she want it." He took a deep breath. "I left out anything about mana taps, other than cautionary tales. They'd be even safer in that world, but as far as I can tell, they'd still ultimately prove fatal."
"And..." Caravel bit her lip as she began connecting the core. "We really can't go with her?"
Laurel shook his head. "I wish we could, but it's going to take an incredible amount of power as it is. Anything more than her mass and that of the capsule would take so much magic to shift, it would trigger the collapse before we left this universe. As it is, we're cutting our remaining time by half. At least." He took a deep breath. "By Plao. We're all but sacrificing our entire planet just to save one foal."
"But she's our foal, and she'd die with the rest of us if we didn't do it. And our whole culture's coming with her." Caravel thumped the capsule, then gave a grim grin as a thin row of status lights lit up green. "I call that a win."
"I suppose."
Caravel nosed the last access panel closed. "It's ready."
Laurel stumbled back a step. "A-already?"
"Time's of the essence, isn't it?"
"Yes. Yes, I suppose it is."
Laurel moved to the bassinet, where Collision Risk lay entranced by a holographic mobile. He shut it off, making his daughter whimper. "I know, sweetie. I'm sad too." He lifted her in his magic, making her coo with delight as they approached the capsule. He passed her to Caravel. "Here's Mommy."
Caravel held Collision close. "Oh, my sweet baby." For a time, nopony said anything. Laurel held Caravel, Caravel held Collision, and Collision babbled to herself.
Finally, Caravel put her daughter into the capsule. "Goodbye, Collision. Mommy loves you."
"Daddy loves you too." Laurel lit his horn and closed the habitation chamber. It would unseal itself when it arrived in that other world, but until then, it would need to protect Collision from the depths of probability space. Laurel turned to the console that held the actual controls. The capsule itself had the high-D shift drive, but he didn't want any chance of somepony trying to send his daughter back to her doom. With a click, he engaged the launch sequence. "Transfer in twenty seconds."
Caravel sniffed and held out her hoof. Laurel took it in his own.
The capsule glowed, softly at first, then ever brighter. Perspective twisted around it, making it seem not larger but more prominent. Neither parent could look away, even as space twisted around it in surreal fractal forms. A bizarre suction tugged at horn and wings as the device used more magic than any Crouptonian endeavor before it. Finally, it vanished with a small thunderclap of air filling unoccupied space.
Caravel buried her head in Laurel's withers, wrapping a wing around him. "Do you think she'll be alright?"
He nuzzled her. "She'll have a chance. That's what matters."
Scootaloo sighed, lying back in her bed with a comic book. Rainy days stunk. She supposed she should like them more, being a pegasus and all, but when her best friends weren't, there wasn't much to do. Especially not when they were still figuring out the next stage of the Crusade.
A knock on her door made her look up. "Yeah?"
The door opened, revealing a pegasus mare who resembled an older, paler version of Scootaloo. "Sweetie?"
Scootaloo rolled her eyes at the sappy name. Not even befriending Sweetie Belle had been enough to shake it. "Yeah, Mom?"
"Since you have your cutie mark," said Dizzy Twister, "I think there's something you need to see. Come with me."
Scootaloo tilted her head and got to her hooves. "Um, okay."
The pegasi made their way upstairs. "Now, while I wish you hadn't found out the way you did, you know your father and I adopted you," said Dizzy.
"Cutie Mark Crusader Bureaucrats, we found my certificate of adoption, yadda yadda, we've already been through that." Scootaloo stumbled. "Wait, did you guys know my birth parents?"
"Well... not exactly."
"Huh?"
Dizzy said nothing, coming to a stop in the middle of the hallway, flapping up to the ceiling, grabbing a string in her teeth, and pulling down a stairway.
Scootaloo looked at it and tilted her head. "I thought I wasn't allowed in the attic."
"You're about to find out why." Dizzy went up the stairs, and Scootaloo followed.
It was largely as her father had described, just a bunch of boxes and baby stuff that didn't merit losing cookie privileges for the rest of time. But then Dizzy pulled off a dust cover, revealing a steely cylinder a bit bigger than Spike.
"What—"
Scootaloo's question was cut off by a glowing light shining from the top of the cylinder. An equine head formed within the cone of light. Scootaloo knew she'd never seen the stallion before, but he still seemed strangely familiar. Eyes wide, she said, "Are... Are you..."
The stallion's head gave a sad smile. “Hello, my daughter.”
Author's Note
Both the star Krypton orbited and the god the Kryptonians worshiped are named Rao. It isn't easy to ponify a monosyllable. And yes, I know the planet sounds like a salad topping.
Dizzy Twister is a fairly obscure background pony. She's on the left here, and she really does resemble Scootaloo.
Who is Scootaloo's adoptive father? Who would you like him to be?
