Halt and catch fire.

by ItIsASillyLittleGame

Rating: teen
Tags: Drama, Science Fiction, Random, Adventure
Length: 6752

An autonomous machine makes first contact with magical, sentient equines. Whilst self aware, it must still learn about the creatures it has encountered and how to interact with them.

An exploration probe carries a simple payload - a humanoid, autonomous machine. It is equipped with everything it needs if it encounters life on other planets. Having had its system shut down now for an indeterminate period of time, quite possibly for millennia, it crashes into Equestria and boots itself up.

With no knowledge whatsoever of where it is or what kind of life forms it may encounter, it must learn of its surroundings and adapt - and should it find sentient life, whether to consider it a threat or not.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2017-02-17 13:56:00 UTC

0b00000001 .code Start PROC

0b00000001 .code Start PROC

Nothing that it had ever passed by in the countless millennia that it had journeyed paid the silvery, metallic sphere much heed.  Even when its travels had taken it close to star systems with planets that would otherwise appear to be supportive of life, its passage went unnoticed as it sped across the endless void of space and time. Like some kind of confused paperboy stuck on an infinite route, it happened to carry some kind of payload - but nothing that anything sentient had ever found out about, with that same payload remaining firmly closed, shuttered and in this case unbooted within its metaphorical carry basket.

There was no outward hint on the sphere itself as to what it might contain.  Perhaps some creature had at some point noted its passing, but been unaware of the significance of what they had stumbled on.  Maybe something, somewhere and at some time or other had detected its otherworldly (relatively speaking) presence soaring through the cosmos, but perhaps put it down to any of a number of unexplained phenomena.

Certainly nothing beyond the laws of physics had ever stepped in to interfere with its progress.  At speeds too insane to comprehend, it made its way across successions of solar systems and aside from minor alterations of course caused by gravity wells, it paid no attention to anything.

The spherical object bore no maker's mark, no mysterious hieroglyphs, no pictures of naked beings to give any hint as to its point of origin.  It certainly didn't carry any picture discs or samples of sounds from another civilization.  The only clue as to its identify that it really offered anyone was the vector of its approach - and as that vector theoretically extended an infinite distance across the universe, its birthplace could lie anywhere along that corridor.

As with any instance where the length of time isn't a pressing issue nor is the distance traveled of any concern to the driver, the spheroid eventually happened upon a particularly strange solar system, in what was otherwise just another pin prick in the middle of an unfathomably deep mountain of pin pricks.  It traversed the outer reaches of the solar winds and commenced its encroach upon the center of the star's system.  It passed a few gas giants - nothing that it had not passed before.  It passed closely enough to one inner rocky world for its path to be somewhat bent, sending it hurtling - as fortune and Newton would have it - towards a lone planet apparently bearing everything needed to sustain organic lifeforms.

The metal object seemed to ignore the single, rocky moon that orbited the planet itself.  After trekking through a near perfect void for so long, it suddenly felt the hot fingers of an atmosphere once more touching its outer shell.  The outer covering, constructed of some manner of incredibly resilient crystalline material, bore the abrasive work of the planet's best efforts to resist its motion quite well.  The gravity of the planet having thus embraced the lone traveler, it began to pull it towards the ground.  For its part, the sphere offered no resistance at all to this downward spiral.  Mindlessly it fell, its only task being to follow the parabola it had been drawn into until its velocity fell below the speed at which sound could reasonably pass through the planet's atmosphere.

The creators had not thought to install brakes, parachutes, springs or balloons of any kind.  As exploration happened to be its original purpose, what it landed on and how it did so didn't matter to the designers it seemed.

The unannounced stranger hurtled through the air, startling onlookers below with its fiery tail.  Having at last expended the momentum that it had so carefully saved over so many thousands of years, it met at last with something solid.

Whilst it had indeed lost a good deal of momentum, it was not going to give up the last of those physical savings easily.  Striking the ground with an enormous explosion of rock, soil and burning trees, it crashed towards what would to be its ultimate and strange destiny, like some kind of enormous bowling ball.

It continued its cannon ball roll, smashing the flora in its path, as it rolled on towards a rather dense, unkempt forest, inhabited by various strange animals.

It was a forest that other nearby inhabitants knew better as the 'Everfree Forest'.

The distant roar of its encroach startled the Forest dwellers, who noted the flying trees and dirt that heralded the probes arrival, and they made their best efforts to give it space.

Finally, with the last of its momentum surrendering to inertia, it rolled to a steamy halt - silent, but for the screeches and startled calls of the lifeforms that continued to flee from it.

Some manner of internal mechanism had detected the sudden deceleration.  It began to slowly wake itself from its long sleep, commencing duties that had been preset so long ago, like an office worker suddenly brought from the pleasantries of a deep rest to the unwelcome notes of a bleating alarm clock.

KILL PROC watchdog

> WATCHDOG:  I am dead

> EXEC inertial_int 10

> MOTD:  IF YOU CAN READ THIS, WE MADE IT! - Dave.

> EXEC boot_seq_int START

> .prog start warmup

> .prog start corecheck

> .prog end corecheck rep: all cores pass

> .prog start low_power

> .prog end low_power rep: aux power on for boot, main bus ready

> .prog start primode_brain -v -t --check="neuro_net, structural, algos, sensors, weapons, comms"

> PRIMODE:  Checking neuronet status ... online, JASON kernal bootable, okay.

> PRIMODE:  Verifying structural integrity ... servos okay.

> PRIMODE:  Verifying learning algos ... adaptive, okay.  unsupervised, okay.  transduction, okay. clustering, distributive, inductive, reasoning okay.

> PRIMODE: Verifying sensors:  visible light, UV, IR, audible, ultrasonic, subsonic, passive, active radar/sonar online.

> PRIMODE:  Weapons:  On board energy weapons available, integrity check, unarmed at this time (default)

> PRIMODE:  Comms active, calling home.

> .prog end primode check

> .prog start main_power

> .prog end main_power main bus up, main reactor online, stable

> .prog comms rep: Cannot find home.  Looking .... Looking ....

> .bootstrap JASON init exploratory_mode no_hurt big_smile

The steaming metal ball slowly began to crack open, looking for all the world like some manner of odd birthday cake decoration or strange Faberge egg.  Opening from its apex, it slowly split into several segments that spread outward, opening to finally reveal its cargo.

It revealed what happened to be its only cargo.

A humanoid robot, still crouched and otherwise as motionless as it had been since it had been sent on its journey.

Slowly, as its joints almost appeared to be unused to moving, it rose to a stance, opening it's incredibly life-like blue eyes.  It had been built to replicate a humanoid male in almost every sense.  It was engineered to appear life-like, and as such it appeared to have the same anatomy.  It was devoid of hair though and its fingernails and toenails were constructed of plastics instead of keratin.  Its skin was a synthetic material - smooth, with the areas in which one would expect to find the muscles of the limbs and torso accentuated.  The nose, mouth, eyes and ears all formed the related functions expected for a humanoid.  The frame was designed to be as life-like as possible without entering the 'uncanny valley', from the basic appearance of the face, through it's anatomy - including genitalia.

This was an android - it was humanoid in form, but not so far as to appear frightening.

The android offered no sign of surprise, having risen from its container.  It didn't speak, nor did it display the least concern regarding the chaos and destruction that lay in the wake of its arrival.

It turned with what appeared to be great purpose, scanning the immediate surroundings intently.

> JASON primode kernal ACTIVE - version 5.7.22, neuronet processor

> JASON I am alive - woof.

> .prog comms rep:  High gain and low gain, no response.  Looking ... Looking ...

The android didn't appear to be perturbed by the frightened calls from the animals in the nearby trees.  It took several solid, determined steps away from the shell that had brought it here after so long, and made a further analysis.  Various on board science modules began to kick in.

> .prog comms rep:  High gain and low gain, no response.  Looking ... Looking ...

> .prog start atmospheric_test

> .prog comms rep:  Bugger it, nothing there.  Switching to passive, high gain and low gain.

> .prog atmospheric_test

Nitrogen 0.780,

Oxygen 0.210,

Argon 0.009,

CO and Trace gases 0.001.  

Pressure:  101.325 kPa.

Temp 303.150 K.

> .prog comms rep:  Still nothing.  Handing over to WATCHDOG.

> .prog end comms

> .prog start WATCHDOG -p comms

> .prog end atmospheric_test

This particular android was equipped with what its designers had referred to as a 'primode' brain.  It consisted of several intertwined neuro networks, that bound together to imitate an organic brain, running a learn-to-learn kernal which they had code-named 'Jason' - the name of a pet dog that one of the chief scientists had owned.  In developing this neuronetwork machine, they had imbued it with the ability to learn - through traditional reasoning and logic - induction and so on.  It was also designed to teach itself to learn, to 'learn to learn'.  Prior to being sent on its path here, it had been given at least a modicum of knowledge and a basic understanding of how to interact with other species.

It was this process of learning that lead it to a nearby tree - one of the few in the immediate area that had not sustained catastrophic damage.  It reached out a hand and gently brushed the surface.

'Rough texture.  Appears to be carbon based, cellulose.  Dead cells.  No reaction to palpation,' it thought to itself.  It should at least attempt a greeting, even given that a response from this life form covered in dead cells appeared unlikely.  "Hello," the android said suddenly, yet politely.  "Greetings, can you respond to me?" Again, the object offered no response.  'Object alive, but not sentient' the android noted, keeping a recollection of this tall thing it had found for future use.  As there seemed to be so many of these half dead organic lifeforms across the horizon, it would seem important to know more about them.

It could not determine the time or date relative to its point of origin, nor was it aware of its current location.  It continued to observe the greenery near the landing site, whilst quietly listening for radio signals typical of land based transmitters, or orbiting satellites.  It had attempted radio communication with known receivers, but had been met with silence.  In seeking out sentient life, it began passively listening for any electromagnetic traffic that might prove interesting or useful.

> WATCHDOG .prog comms executing

> .prog comms rep:  passive band scan

> .prog comms rep:  LF, MF, HF, VHF, UHF, EHF, THF

> .prog comms rep:  all bands static, nil for analogue or digital communications, no patterns or repeaters noted.

> WATCHDOG .prog comms SLEEP

It seemed that at least as far as radio technology went, the android was on its own.  Its primode brain, already engineered towards autonomous activity, began to slowly adjust, forming new electronic synapses.  Now it was on its own, it had a job to do - and that job was to learn.

It had already gained a basic understanding of its surroundings, and attempted to package this data for transmission - but being unaware of which direction to send, with the stars not matching any known map that it had, this would have to wait.

> PRIMODE: autonomous_mode -learn -explore -no_harm

> WATCHDOG .prog comms PASSIVE

It was time to begin searching this place, for lifeforms that could communicate.  To find anything at all that was sentient.

To determine if they were a threat.

The day had progressed more or less as most days did in Ponyville.  The inhabitants went about their regular business, the running of the council went smoothly, apples were harvested and Pinkie Pie continued her violation of the laws of physics - her particular prowess, apart from parties.  Rarity and Fluttershy were enjoying their weekly outing to the spa.  Twilight and Spike were surrounded by books, naturally enough.

"Twilight, don't you think we should, you know, go out and do something different today?" Spike asked.

"Spike, I've got so much study to catch up on!  What else could we possibly be doing?" responded Twilight, flipping through a manuscript that told of the finer points of quintics and obscure mathematics.

"We could be doing ... I don't know, anything!  Just a walk!  Outside!  You now, somewhere that doesn't have any books for once."

"Ugh.  I guess i could use some fresh air."

"Yes, and sunlight!  You do remember what the sun looks like, don't you?" he asked, sarcastically.

The two of them exited the front of Twilight's house, shut the door and proceeded towards the town center.  With no particular purpose in mind, the conversation naturally turned to their trip being a waste of time.

"Okay, Spike, so we're outside.  Is there anywhere particular you think we should go?"

"How about Rarity's Boutique?"

"Well, this is the day that she's usually at the spa with Fluttershy."

"Okay, maybe we can drop by and see Pinkie?  That always ends up being entertaining!"

Twilight managed a smile finally.  "Well, yes, she's usually up something that's - ... " She stopped mid sentence, noticing a peculiar bright spark suddenly appearing, far across the sky, near the horizon.  "Spike, do you see that?  The glowing spark there, over the horizon - look over towards the Everfree Forest! ... Do you see it now?"

"Hey, yeah!  It's ... getting brighter," he observed.

The intensity of the object in the sky grew, until it had the attention of most of the residents in the town.  It made no sound, for the wave at this stage was still following behind - whatever it was, it was traveling well beyond the speed of sound.

"I've got a really bad feeling about this, Spike," stuttered Twilight.

"Yeah, well you're not alone, there!  What is that thing?" he quizzed.

The object's brightness grew in intensity as it appeared to come closer, from the far distant horizon.  It's rate of descent seemed to slow enough for the object to stop glowing so much, but it still left a strange, streaming tail in its wake.

"Oh my goodness, Spike, that has to be a meteor of some kind!  But it's big!!  I've never seen one get so close to the ground before!" exclaimed Twilight, half delighted and half terrified.

In the far distance, the object made contact with the ground - dirt, trees and rocks began flying from its point of impact.

"Spike, this one is going to be really close to - ..."

The shock wave hit the town.  An enormous, ear-cracking roar split the air, as any pony not physically held down somehow was thrown backwards from the direction of the forest.  Any timber that was loose on the rooftops blew away like confetti - doors slammed, windows shattered, dirt and dust befouled the air.

Spike and Fluttershy found themselves hurled backwards, all the way to the door of Twilight's house.  They thudded against the walls and momentarily clung to the tree in desperation.  This didn't appear to be necessary, since the blast had now passed the town and the wind and noise had once more settled.

The town square looked as if some giant angry child had been playing pick up sticks.  Parts of houses, bits of doors, loose furniture, groups of confused ponies wandered the area trying to understand what had happened.

Spike, still clinging onto the walls of Twilight's house, stared at her, while he trembled nervously.  Twilight wasn't fairing any better.  She had studied meteors and such before and observed their entry into the atmosphere.  This had often been a rather beautiful phenomenon, bright sparks and pretty colored tails formed by the compounds that made up the rocks as they burnt up.  She had always thought the sight to be wondrous.

Until now, it seemed.

She had never imagined one landing so close to Ponyville and couldn't have foreseen the damage that it had caused.  Whilst the damage to the town seemed to be largely superficial, it had resulted in several ponies being injured - either by flying debris or by the blast itself.

Twilight managed to reason her way out of her moment of panic.  Clearly this had been the blast from the meteor entering the atmosphere and crashing through to the ground.  So, at this moment, it was obviously no longer moving.  It would be sitting there - probably burning away in a crater just inside the Everfree Forest.  The point of impact was certainly easy to note, as a tall tail of smoke slowly rose from the point at which the object had stopped.

Her scientific instincts began to kick in.  "Spike!  We have to see the point where this meteor has landed and report on our findings to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna  ... as soon as possible!" she said, finding herself still shaking and gripping the side of her house.

"Twilight ... do you really thing that's a good idea? ... Given what it ... "

"Spike, it's not moving anymore, it's hit the ground and come to a stop - it's not going to hurt anypony!  It's just ... well, a chunk of rock, or metal!  We need to go and investigate!"

"You mean ... we can let go of your house, now?"

"Yes, Spike.  I'm certain that was just the shock - the blast of the meteor as it went through the air and struck the ground."

Spike slowly removed his claws from Twilight's exterior wall.  "I dunno, Twilight, I still really think that this is a bad idea!" he exclaimed.

"Spike, we are going to see what's landed there.  Trust me, it's just a chunk of rock or metal.  Let's go!"

A pile of broken roof planks exploded, exposing a startlingly bright eyed pony.  Pinkie Pie had somehow been blown into this part of the street and had been temporarily buried by housing debris.  Unfazed, she had lept clear of the pile as soon as the noise had died down.  "I knew it!" she squealed angrily.  "My Pinkie sense told me this would happen!  My tail was twitchin' twitchin' twitchin', more twinchin' that ever before!"

Twilight, having come to terms with the mysterious Pinkie sense, stopped to observe her friend.  "Wow, Pinkie, you made it through there with hardly a scratch!  When did ... your tail start to ... twitch?"

"Right when I saw that bright light in the sky!  Wasn't it beautiful?!?  So many different colors, and so bright and ... well, in the sky!  I knew something was coming, though.  Twitchin' twitchin' ... "

"Yes, I get the idea, Pinkie.  Do you want to come with us?  Spike and I are going to investigate this meteor and see if we can find out what it's made of and how big it is.  It's rare to really see one like this - I suspect there must be quite a bit of still there."

"Oh oh, I'll come!  I'll come!  I'll have my Pinkie senses tuned up and ready just in case," she exclaimed, sidling up to Twilight and Spike as they made they towards the edge of the Everfree Forest.

Towards that tall, tell-tale smoke rising from where the meteor had come to rest.

0b00000002 xor eax, eax

0b00000002 xor eax, eax

The android continued its basic search of the surroundings.  There appeared to be still more columnar collections of dead cells that towered around its landing site.  There also appeared to be an assortment of audible inputs, whilst the active radar continued its basic job of looking for anything that may have a certain amount of structure.  Surrounded as it was by trees, this was not entirely easy.  Traversing the landing site, it came across a length of one of the aforementioned columnar cellulose objects.  This part appeared to have been broken off and had been in situ for a considerable period of time.  It appeared hollow.  A large opening in the top of the dead columnar object was worth investigating.  Switching to active infrared, the android met with a rather angry looking creature hiding within the center of the aforementioned long-dead column of cellulose.  The creature itself was unusual - it was white in appearance and had long protuberances that extended from what appeared to be its cranium.  The prominent teeth at the front of its oral cavity indicated this creature was likely a rodent.

Given that this creature appeared to be binocular, an attempt at communication seemed a logical action to take.

"Hello.  I am Jason.  Can you understand me?" asked the android.  The android realized that any possibility of communication with a rodent was remote.  At this point, it was looking for any kind of intelligent response - if this particular creature so much as clawed at the androids outer skin, that would be an improvement over the dead columns it had otherwise found.

The creature emitted a high pitched squeaking noise and lept from the hole in the dead column, bouncing rapidly across the clearing and through still more of the columns of dead cells that appeared to blanket the ground through to the horizon.

"White creature, four legged, possibly a rodent.  Unable to accept basic communication.  Small tail.  Body covered almost entirely in some kind of keratin," the android dutifully noted.

> WATCHDOG .prog coms rep: No sign of intelligent radio communications.  Remaining passive.

A further scan of the decaying organic column lying on the ground did not turn up anything interesting.  The android noted that parts of the ground that had not been burned on its re-entry were also covered in fine, green strands of organic material.  It reached down, took a single blade of the material and placed it into its mouth, in order to perform a basic analysis of its chemical composition.

> .prog start gas_chromatography --basic

Trace: polysaccharide

Cellulose

Lignin

Pentosans

Anhydrous glucose

Chlorophyll

>.prog end chromatography

Having found nothing that appeared to warrant deeper analysis at this time, the android stood up and began walking further afield.  There were more of the dead columns, some similar forms of green organic life spread across the ground - beyond the startled keratin coated rodent and the curious calls of avian creatures further away, there was nothing as yet extraordinary that it had encountered.

It seemed to be a good time to begin attempting to find a means to maintain its bearings.  Given the lack of easily identifiable land marks, the next best solution would be to switch to using its on-board magnetic scientific platform to try and use this planet's magnetic field to try and keep track of its bearings.  It passively ran an analysis of the nearby star, in case the magnetic field proved to be in flux and therefore useless as a navigational tool - if so, then perhaps navigation by the position of the star itself or through the star field at night would be possible.

Whilst commencing its solar navigation experiment, it ran a brief check of the chemical absorption lines to determine the star's composition.

>.prog start spectral_analysis - sol --basic

H: 0.7346

He: 0.2485

O: 0.0077

C: 0.0029

Fe: 0.0016

Others at trace

>.prog end spectral_analysis

>.prog start magnetic_field_exp

The solar system it found itself in appeared to be that of a G2V yellow dwarf.  The magnetic experiment determined only the faintest hint of any kind of flux - with the polarity of the planet's magnetic fields thus reasonably fixed, those poles could be used for a certain degree of navigation.  The information that it had gathered to this point seemed to indicate a world and a star system not entirely removed in structure and chemistry to that from which it had been sent.  The android found this intriguing, since if its designers had evolved enough intelligence to build machines such as itself, to discover alcohol and invent violent games involving leather balls and goal posts, then a similar evolutionary outcome on this particular planet was also likely.

Its on-board radio still somewhat mindlessly listened for broadcasts which appeared unlikely at this point to exist. The android continued to search on foot a little further afield.  It happened to pick a direction it had determined as "west" based on the dipole magnetic field it could sense.  It had not journeyed far, when dramatic changes within the so-called visible spectrum of light made it pause.  The notion of a 'visible' spectrum for the android was a little ludicrous, with it being able to sense electromagnetic waves above and below the limits of the vision afforded by the retinas of its makers.  In any case, the mid-spectral green hue it has thus far seen around the landing sight was now suddenly confronted with bright pink and something akin to purple.   There was a third that - whilst largely green - also seem to sport purple armor of some kind.

Here indeed were three organic creatures.  They had eyes, always useful things to have.  They appeared to be sentient enough to be aware of the android's presence.  For the moment, they appeared silent, with their oral cavities somewhat ajar.  It was difficult to determine if the extent to which their oral cavities were open was their standard behavior or not.  The three creatures appeared rather motionless, yet their eyes seem to remained fixed on the android.  The two more colorful creatures appeared to be covered in a fine keratin covering somewhat like the rodent within the dead cellulose column from earlier.  The third appeared to be reptilian.

None of these creatures made so much as a sound presently, but they remained standing.  Perhaps this was a means of greeting within their species?  Perhaps they were territorial and this gaping of their oral cavities was a means of demonstrating authority?  The android decided not to approach any further, and instead attempted a greeting.

It raised its left hand, displaying the posterior portion of its palm.  "Greetings.  My name is Jason.  I mean no harm," it attempted to say.  There was no movement from any of the creatures.  Some blinking was noted and the three creatures seemed to turn their heads slowly to look at one another.  Perhaps these creatures communicated through the use of their eyelids?  The three turned slowly back to the android and once more met its eyes.

The android blinked a few times, in a steady pattern.

The three creatures it faced returned the blinking pattern.  It now seemed likely that they did in fact communicate through the use of their palpebrae musculature.

The android attempted a variation of pattern, by blinking three times at a steady one hertz, thence switching to three more blinks in at a one half hertz rate.

The three creatures responded with further blinks, in seemingly random orders.  The android observed these seemingly random patterns and commenced a background study of the pattern of these exchanges.  As various heuristic algorithms concentrated on the apparent complexity of the eye blinks, the rest of its primode brain pushed further onward with its study.

Just when it seemed to the android that at least some manner of communication was transpiring, the purple colored creature used its oral cavity to form audible sounds.  This proved to be fascinating, since not only did this indicate that the creature had vocal chords, but that it appeared to communicate through blinking along with a spoken language.

Continuing to blink using a series of simple patterns, the android decided to attempt further communication orally.  "Greetings.  My name is Jason, I am an explorer and I mean no harm."

The android could not make out any of the language being spoken by the purple creature.  The language they were using appeared to be significantly complex - there were a variety of phonetics employed.  It wondered if there were other language types at its disposal that may prove useful?  Given that these creatures were communicating somehow using eye blinks, it seemed reasonable that they may understand binary.  Taking the complete alphabet of which the android was aware, it converted that binary pattern into a simple, easy to understand thirty six thousand hertz pattern.

It opened its mouth and emitted the entire alphabet in this format, repeating it several times.

The response was the three creatures it had found was curious.  They shut their eyes, their mouths closed into a strange grimace and they seemed to want to cover their auditory canals.  Clearly binary - or at least binary at that frequency - was not something they were aware of.

Ceasing emission of the binary alphabet, it returned to simple blinking.  It began to follow a simple binary pattern in the hopes of demonstrating some basic knowledge of mathematics.  It had been shown to have limited effect on school aged children where the android was from, so perhaps here it would prove useful too.  It commenced blinking incrementally using binary - a rapid half hertz blink nominally for false, a full hertz long blink for a true.

The three creatures slowly opened their eyes and uncovered their aural canals once more.  The pink colored one managed to say something this time.  The phonetics it employed were similar to those used by the purple one, albeit at a higher pitch.  "I am sorry, I did not mean to frighten you with binary," the android apologized.

It continued to blink, now having reached into the thirties in binary.  It approached the strange pink one, and held out its hand slowly.  "Hello!  My name is Jason.  I mean no harm, I am an explorer!"

The pink creature stared at him.  It seemed to raise one eyebrow and lower the other, affecting a most strange look.  It then turned its gaze down to the outstretched hand.  Perhaps the position of the eyebrows along with the movement of the eyelids was an adjunctive form of communication here, along with spoken words?  The android ceased blinking in binary as it appeared to have had little effect to this point, and instead tried to raise and lower either of its eyebrows in various ways to try to illicit a response.

The pink creature turned to the purple one and bubbled a few words, which the android could once again make no sense of.  The purple creature turned to face it and seemed to notice the patterns it was making with its eyebrows.  As a further point of confusion, the creature then turned its head slightly to one side.

The android decided to copy this slight cocking of the head, whilst continuing to raise and lower either eyebrow.

The purple creature leaned its head the opposite direction, and the android once more copied.

The electronic synapses of its primode brain finally began to develop a theory.  These creatures were most likely using spoken word for communication, which would leave their facial muscles free for expression.  These mannerisms were also known amongst the creators.  The android snapped its head upright, and assumed a passive face once more.

It remained standing there with its hand outstretched towards the pink creature.  There was some kind of discussion between the purple animal and the pink one, at which point the pink creature appeared to turn the lateral points of its oral cavity upward, placing the end of one of its limbs into the android's hand.

"I am unsure that you can understand me," said the android, as slowly and as clearly as it could manage.  "I would be intrigued to know if there are more of you."

The small reptile muttered something to the purple creature.  The tone of the voice was different from the others, which the android found confusing.  The purple creature replied, once more in a language which the android could not understand.  However, the three of them turned, and appeared to motion for it to follow.  Walking behind the three of them, the android busied itself with listening passively for radio communications and taking notes about the anatomy of these fascinating creatures it had found.

If they had evolved at least this far, then there should be other signs the android needed to look for.  It's ultimate goal of exploration began entertaining theories about everything from political systems through to whether or not they exercised a sense of humor.  Given the strange horn the purple creature wore, it seemed certain that a sense of humor must play a big part in what may otherwise be a very simple society.

Twilight, Pinkie and Spike made their way across the field near Fluttershy's cottage towards the column of smoke in the Everfree Forest.  The animals that would normally have been busily playing around the cottage had been frightened under cover by the impact of the meteor.

"Thank Celestia the meteor landed so much further away!  It's obviously lost a lot of its energy as it crashed through the forest, before coming to a halt here.  If it'd landed any closer, the results could have been catastrophic!" remarked Twilight.

"But, Twilight, most of the buildings in Ponyville don't have roofs anymore!" exclaimed Spike.

"Imagine having a meteor land so close like this!  It's almost a once in a lifetime opportunity for study!"

"Twilight, some of the ponies it blew into the town square still haven't been able to untangle themselves!"

"Whatever will be left of the meteor itself is likely to be the denser metal - the rest of it would have burnt up in the atmosphere."

"I think Mr Cake's head got stuck through the wall of sugar cube corner!"

"I can't wait to get a sample of it back to the lab so we can run some tests on its composition."

Spike gave up at this point.  Pinkie managed to remain calmer than the two of them, smiling to herself and just bouncing along - seemingly unfazed by the day's mysterious and dusty turn of events.

"Pinkie, how can you not be scared about any of this?" asked Spike.

"Scared?  About what, Spike?"

"This thing that crashed here in the forest!" he reminded her.

"Oh that!  Well, whatever it is, it's still nice to be out here near the forest!  It's much sunnier than it was underneath all those planks of wood in the town center!  Wasn't that fun??  I mean, I was just watching the bright light and wondering why my tail was switching and then suddenly I was flying!!"

The three of them finally crossed the meadow, and reached the edge of the Everfree.  The fear of the unknown within the forest itself now climbed atop the fear of the mysterious town-leveling meteor within their minds, and these two fears now grappled for supremacy.

Twilight took a deep breath.  "Come on, Spike!  Remember, this is for science!" she exclaimed, trying to steel her own nerves as well as her assistant's.

They made their way through the outskirts of the forest, towards the now thinning smoke that rose from where the meteor had landed.  It had landed close enough to the edge of the forest for them not to have to actually walk a great distance.  It was eerily quiet - the recent commotion had obviously frightened away any of the forest dwelling animals.  Advancing towards the meteor's resting spot, the trees slowly began to thin, and they found themselves standing at the edge of an area covered with somewhat flattened flora.

There, incredibly, stood some kind of strange creature.  The three friends froze where they were.  The alternate fears of the unknown within the forest and the threat of a killer rock stood locked where they were, as a third daemon of terror raised its curious head and climbed to the pinnacle of their collected psyches.

Spike tried to whisper in a very low tone to Twilight.  "Umm ... that ... that's not a rock, Twilight."

"No," added Pinkie Pie.  "It's not fudge, either."

The strange creature looked around and appeared to notice the three of them standing there.  Finding themselves unable to move, it advanced slowly but purposefully towards them.  The only thing they managed to do was to stand still, their mouths agape in a degree of shock.

The creature stopped a few meters away from them and slowly raised one of its limbs.  Having done so, it opened what appeared to be its mouth and blathered a series of noises that neither of the ponies nor Spike could seem to make out.  They slowly turned to face one another, mouths still somewhat ajar, before returning their attention to ... whatever this thing in the forest was.

To their surprise, the creature remained standing with its hand aloft and started to blink.  In surprise, they found themselves blinking as well, in an attempt to make sure that what they were witnessing was not in fact an hallucination.  Whatever the thing was, its behavior started to become even more erratic, as it blinked repeatedly.  This act in itself was almost mesmerizing.  Why on earth would anything stand there and just blink?  Was that all it was capable of doing?  To make matters more confusing, it began to blink at different speeds - something was clearly very wrong here.

"It looks almost like the humans I've seen when I've traveled through the portal in Canterlot ... but it's not really a human.  it's ... sort of made to look like one," observed Twilight quietly.  "It doesn't seem to speak the same language, though,"

she rhetorically pointed out.  "Umm ... hi there - can you understand me at all?" she asked.

The creature opened to speak and emitted the most hideous sounding squealing noise that any of them had ever heard.  It was one long, awful sounding screech and was almost physically painful to hear.  Covering their ears and shutting their eyes, the creature got the message that this was uncomfortable and ceased the noise almost immediately.

They uncovered their ears and looked back at this oddity that had arrived here in the Everfree.  It hadn't moved, it just seemed to stand there, continuing on with what looked for all the world like some kind of strange tic - it just blinked in near random patterns and said nothing.  Finally, it garbled some other nonsense that none of them could make sense of.

The human-like creature took a few gentle steps towards Pinkie, outstretched its hand.  The blub-blubbing noise it uttered made possibly less sense than anything else it had uttered to that point.  It remained standing there, seeming to look directly at Pinkie.

Pinkie was still a little confused, and raised one eyebrow in confusion.  She looked slowly downwards at the limb that it had extended to her, unsure of what it was asking her to do, or what it wanted.  Looking up again, she found herself stunned to see the creature waving it's eyebrows around - they curved up, then down, then alternated - it was like watching one of the railway workers waving flags around.

"Umm, Twilight?  Do the humans you know do silly things like this with their eyebrows?"

Twilight observed the strange, erratic and bizarre movements of the creatures eyebrows.  She thought about it for a moment, cocking her head to once side.  Had she ever seen humans behaving so oddly before?  To her annoyance, the creature now began aping her, cocking its own head to one side to match the movement of her own.  She tried cocking her head the other direction and the creature followed her once more, with the strange dance of its eyebrows continuing on its brow.  Suddenly, with no warning, its head snapped upright and the eyebrows ceased their insane tango.

"Pinkie?  If it's anything at all like the humans I've met, I'd almost think it was trying to shake your hand ... well, your hoof anyway."

"Really??  Do you think so?" she asked.  She raised a hoof and gently placed it onto the outstretched 'hand' that the strange thing offered to her.  It looked at her almost gently, and again uttered a series of bubbling, gurgling noises which were incomprehensible.

"Ummm ... Twilight?  I hate to say that I told you, so, but ... well I did," said Spike, nervously.

"Yes, Spike - I certainly wasn't expecting to find anything quite like this.  That doesn't make it less interesting, though!"

"Thank Celestia this wasn't any more interesting," he added.  "If we back away slowly, do you think it will just stay here and we can pretend this never happened?"

"No, Spike.  It seems harmless enough.  I'll bring it back to my lab where we can try to learn more about it and in particular where it came from.  We'll also need to let Princess Celestia know about this immediately!" she exclaimed.  Motioning very gently with a hoof towards her, she tried to communicate her desire for the creature to follow her.

It seemed to understand what she was suggesting, and it meekly followed behind the three of them, as they headed back out of the Everfree Forest.