From Beyond the Vast Horizon

by Stygian Tiger

First published September 5th, 2018 12:00

200,000 years after the fall of man, all remnants of their immense solar empire are gone. Washed away by the sands of time. Some would say this was a boon, some a tragedy and very, very few would say it is a fallacy.

Very little is known about the ancient Gaian Empire other than they controlled their entire galaxy then disappeared without a trace over 200,000 years ago. No one knows what happened to them. Such a mighty intergalactic civilization surely can't just blink out of existence in an instant, can it?

Little do others know, they did leave a trace, a tiny, inconsequential trail of breadcrumbs, as the metaphor goes, and someone is about to follow it.

Chapters

Prologue
An Unknown Threat

Prologue
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From Beyond the Vast Horizon

Prologue

"I wonder how long it has been... How far I have come..."

It was a beautiful day in the peaceful town that is Ponyville. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and everything was right with the world. "Spiiikkkkeee!" Twilight Sparkle shouted from her perch on the windowsill of Ponyville library, looking up with a concerned eye. "Is something burning down there?" When she didn't get a response, she decided to get up and go see what was happening. As she rounded the corner into the kitchen, She saw spike with a fire extinguisher pointed towards the oven and white foam all over.

"You..." She stuttered. "You set the oven on fire?" She asked, not looking impressed. All Spike could do is give a hopeless smile and hope she forgave him. Luckily for him, she was in a good mood because of some news she had received this morning.

"You know, I should take the expense of a new cooker out of your monthly gem allowance," She deadpanned. "But you're lucky. If Shining Armour wasn't supposed to be coming over today, i'd probably be in a bad mood about this. I was wanting a new one anyway..."

"Can't you just fix it with magic? " He tried

"Yeah, but this one was getting old so we might as well..." She mumbled, thinking. "Anyway, you need to help me clean up, He's going to be here in a few hours and I want everything to be perfect and clean and neat!" She bounced back, teleporting the blackened appliance to god knows where.

That was the exact moment Rainbow Dash and Applejack decided to crash through both the door and the window in quick succession, leaving the door in splinters and the window in shards. "Hah! Suck it Applejack! I told you I could outpace you to the library!" The cyan speed demon shouted in victory between breaths.

Applejack just harrumphed and said "Yeah well maybe- if you didn't cheat and use your wings, it would have been a bit more fair!"

"No rules say I can't!" Rainbow countered.

"Ah just figured that would be common sense!" Applejack quickly fired back, putting emphasis on the third word.

"STOP!" Twilight screamed, climbing out of a pile of fallen books, her mane all messed up and her eyes wide.

Both of the arguing ponies dropped their back and forth to look at the seething Twilight. "Oh hi Twi... Fancy seeing you here..." Rainbow managed.

"What are you two doing?" Twilight questioned.

"Well," AJ started "Rainbow here figured she could beat me in a hoof race from the edge of the White Tail to the library... She clearly doesn't understand what the word 'hoof' means." She complained, scowling at her rival. Rainbow just leered at her.

"That doesn't explain why my window and door are in so many pieces and why I was buried under hundreds of books!"

They both just looked apologetic and began to put the books back onto the shelves, trying to avoid making eye contact. It worked for the most part.

Just then, a white unicorn stallion with two-tone blue hair trotted through the remains of the door. "What in Celestia's name happened here?" He asked with the most confused look on his face

Twilight gasped when she saw him, pulling him into a death vice grip of a hug. "I thought you weren't due here for another few hours!"

"I was able to get a chariot, express delivery!" He joked. With that, his horn glowed and the door and window were as good as new and all of the books were in their appropriate positions. Spike just gasped for air.

Twilight let go and face hoofed. "Why didn't I think of that?" She asked no one in particular.

"Because you're silly" Shining said, booping his sister.

"I'm sorry you had to see my house like that... A storm came through." Rainbow and AJ just looked away awkwardly.

"Not to intrude or anything, but why have you come to Ponyville to see Twi? Doesn't she usually go over to Canterlot to see you, considering your job?" Rainbow asked.

"Well that is surprisingly astute of you, Rainbow Dash." Shining replied "Well you are right, this isn't a social call anymore. I have been sent by the princesses to personally escort Twily to the Canterlot Palace." He sighed

"What could possibly that important?" AJ questioned. "Is it Discord again? Are we going to have to use the elements again?"

"I'm sorry Applejack, but I have been ordered to escort Twilight and Twilight alone. The words of the princess." She scowled but let go when she realised she couldn't dispute the princess.

"Must be something pretty big... Just be careful, Twi" AJ said, turning to face the purple unicorn.

Twilight just nodded at that. "Will do." She turned to her brother and asked "So when do we leave?"

"As soon as possible... Even sooner than that would be good but unfortunately that is impossible." He mumbled the last sentence, teleporting them to the chariot that was parked just outside and taking them off to the palace.

A FEW HOURS LATER
CANTERLOT PALACE - THRONE ROOM

The room was gargantuan, the ceiling was so high that you had to crane your neck to see it. The floor, polished marble, coloured by light flooding through several stained glass windows. Rivers of greens, pinks, yellows and blues cascaded through the room, giving it a sort of a dazzling aspect. Towering marble pillars stood between the window, giving way to arches painted in a way that depicts the stars of the night sky. Banners of deep blues and shining golds hung from the walls behind the single throne. A simple red carpet lead up to the imposing throne. Sat atop this throne was the most beautiful alabaster mare you could ever lay your eyes on, Princess Celestia. A goddess in the flesh. She radiated power, strength and motherly love, an aspect that comes with ruling for thousands of years. A small smile was mounted on her face.

"Ah, Twilight Sparkle, Shining Armour, I hope your journey was pleasant enough?" Princess Celestia asked.

"Unnatural amounts of Destabilised Psi Particles detected. Adjusting course."

Author's Note

This is set sometime before season 4, but that doesn't really matter as it will heavily divulge from the canon

An Unknown Threat
View Online

From Beyond the Vast Horizon

An Unknown Threat

"Princess," Twilight and Shining bowed at the same time. "It's good to see you again!" Twilight spoke.

"Indeed it is, my student but I have some slightly concerning news not allowing me to enjoy this reunion to its fullest." The Princess just sighed and took a sip of her tea. This confused Twilight.

"What could be so bad that it concerns you? Is there some kind of ancient ultra evil that we will have to go and smash with friendship?"

Celestia just chuckled at this "Nothing so poetic, Twilight." She ordered all of the guards out of the room. "Something has been... Seen... Very far away. Some kind of... Unnatural object and it is moving very fast." She said in a hushed voice

"How far is it and how fast is it moving?" Twilight inquired

"Well... It is about nine billion miles away and it is moving at approximately one hundred eighty-seven million five hundred thousand miles per hour. Predictions put it directly in the path of Equus..."

Twilight looked like someone hit her with a ton of bricks "That would put it on the edge of our solar system... You're trying to tell me that... An interstellar object is going to crash into Equus in, what? 48 hours?" The look in her eyes was worthy of the situation. "What is it?! How can we stop it?!" She hurried out, hyperventilating

Celestia just looked like usual. "I move the sun on a daily basis, I can handle some space thing. As for the first question, we don't know, this is why we called you. You are to help us figure this out. It should also be a good learning experience for you."

Twilight just looked taken aback. "Why would I ever need experience deflecting space stuff?" She looked at the Princess dumbly.

"Because, one should... Always be ready." Celestia responded uncertainly "Look, just help us with this" She said, teleporting them to some sort of facility.

They were in a circular room with steel walls and a high ceiling. One side was full of chairs. It looked like a meeting room but all of the chairs were pointed towards a centre stage that cut the room in the middle. On the other side of the stage were machines and telescopes pointed out of a half open roof towards one point in the sky. There was several tables with maps on, some marked with lines and Xes and some were covered in red circles. Ponies dressed in white clothes were milling about, some carrying clipboards some carrying papers in a generally hurried fashion. Magically projected on the wall of the stage was a general area of space. It looked static. Twenty unicorns were in a corner with their magic activated, eyes closed and silent. They were holding up the magic probe in orbit in lieu of the princess. They were some of the best mages in the kingdom.

"What in Tartarus is this?" Twilight blurted out, amazed.

"This is the Early Disaster Avoidance Bureau . Its where we keep tabs on the stability of countries in case of war, the state of the ground in case of earthquakes and, of course, space. We don't have much ability to monitor space but detecting a meteorite, or something similar, late is better than not at all." The Princess replied.

All Twilight could do is gawp.

"Indeed. Well we are going to have to cast the spell on the stage. Its structure is built upon a large amount of refined Thaumium to boost magical clarity. Your extra magical ability will be just the little kick that we need to enhance the resolution of the probe. You see, I can kinda feel the solar system if I can concentrate hard enough, but to actually have more than a gut feeling, I will need to interface my magic with other large pools of mana. You along with my sister should be just enough to see what this thing is a bit better. It feels... Strange. Not like normal space debris. That's why I we are using all of this" Celestia explained, waving her hoof towards everything.

Twilight was just about to ask another question when Princess Luna came in through a sliding metal door, cutting her off.

"Ah, Twilight, you are here! We shalt finally figure out this conundrum! Come, we must make haste, we don't have much time. Open the roof all the way!" She shouted

The ceiling retracted, giving way to the abyssal stygian black sky. Luna had crafted this night to be extra crystalline for the purposes of this test.

With that, the three headed down the centre steps and onto the dais.

Celestia started by weaving the initial spell, drawing a magic circle in her mind, adding subtracting and changing seemingly inconsequential markings and shapes to a degree that could only be achieved by a goddess. Sending waves and waves of magic into her horn, a wispy string of pure thaumic energy trailed up and sprung forth from her horn and blasted into the sky. At that point, Luna mirrored the process, making a replica of her sisters spell but changing tiny things like the thickness of a line or a tiny shape. A strand of searing white energy shot out of her horn and joined the other, thickening as it connected.

Twilight knew how to feed another's spell, it was simple. She simply locked onto the magic manifestations and turned her mana on. Like a tap, she just simply opened the 'valve' and the spell took what it needed. She was almost like a battery to a circuit. When she opened her 'valve' to a certain point, though, something happened. Everything went black. Before her spanned the emptiness of space, stars and planets slowly appearing almost like an invisible fog was clearing away. Then, slowly, came the two who's spell she was inside of, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.

Outside of the spell, their eyes were burning white and they were slowly rising off of the ground.

"W-Where are we?" Twilight asked, stuttering at the sheer size of what lies before her.

"Don't fear, we are inside my spell, Twilight" Celestia answered. "This is space, we are controlling a magic probe and it is time to find out what is coming." As she finished her sentence, the space around her started to move. Quickly.