Chapters "This is a disaster !!" - Spark shouted, everything had been very quiet in the installation, but from one moment to another the alarms went off announcing an extreme danger to the integrity of the ring.
Soell, the sun of the system he was in began his final stage of life abruptly.
Thanks to the natural shield of its gravity anchor, Threshold, it helped protect the installation from the initial explosion a few hours before its start.
But that was only a temporary measure, the gas giant would not withstand the blows of the dying sun for a long time, and if the crunches of the installation are a sign, the immense gravity exerted by the sun, he didn't have time.
Spark had never had to work so hard, or at least in recent centuries, he was secretly excited, but the deadly danger that this represented kept him focused on giving orders to his sentinels, the facility had never seen so much action, but when a meteorite threatened to release one of the experiments of its creators, Spark understood that its installation could not risk that the flood will be accidentally released.
Spark was currently helping to repair one of the power supplies, they could not start a slipspace jump sacrificing energy from the shields, shields that if turned off, would leave the installation defenseless, even when the most dangerous meteorites were eliminated by the defenses of the ring.
A whole spectacle of lights, thousands of sentinels working tirelessly to protect the most vulnerable areas, the defenses firing as if they were suppressors, the shields being bombarded with fire and rock, it seemed that a blue bubble surrounded the installation, but even with all its power , the ring was never manufactured for an assault of this magnitude.
30% of the external weapons were destroyed or disabled, 50% of the retrievers were destroyed by meteorite impacts and 25% of the vacuum power generators are being repaired.
The total efficiency of the installation is at 60% and going down, if another vacuum generator is damaged, Spark will have to deactivate the outer defenses to keep the shields.
"All units! Forget the sections that are not important to the structure, concentrate your efforts on maintaining the shields and repair!" - Spark shouted.
'If we want to survive with minimal damage we will have to sacrifice biological parts, using sections as a shield will give us time, that is, it will work, I knew those experiments will be usefull!'
'10 minutes to complete the repair, 15 minutes for the emergency jump, if I turn off the external weapons the time would be reduced to 11 minutes, with collateral damage and loss of 40% of the biological mass, better than risk being consumed by the Sun'
2 of June of 1011 BNM
Celestia was stressed, international attention was increasing as never before, since the union of the hives under chrysalis, the tension with Olenia and the king, not to mention Stalliongrad, gave her headaches.
at least the return of his sister gave him peace, the return of the Crystal Empire also comforted him, although his alliance with New Mareland on the other continent is strong, the threat of war would test its years as a ruler.
"Princess! We have an emergency, something is going on in the sky!" - shouted a guard as he ran into the throne room.
"Are we under attack?!" - Celestia shocked as she descended from her throne, there were only a few hours until midnight, her sister was still resting after her return.
"We are not sure, a huge blue sphere suddenly appeared in the sky" - said the guard as they went out into the garden.
There, in the night sky and covering a section of the starlight, a blue ball was suspended, Celestia deduced that this sphere was in space, near the moon, but before she could do anything else, the ball it exploded suddenly, illuminating the night sky.
Several gasps, including hers were heard, such an explosion could rival a volcano, some even began to applaud, thinking it was a show, but Celestia knew better, that this was not normal, nor safe.
Then the shock wave arrived, as powerful as it was devastating that even the windows broke, Celestia protected herself with her wings while trying to get up, her ears and her head hurt.
slowly opening her eyes, she saw that at least it was not as disastrous as she imagined, although several glasses were broken, security measures coexisted in their frames, a small spell as a security measure in all cities in case her sister will be very excited.
Even so, she expect some injurs, while looking at the sky, she saw with horror like an immense rain of fire and rock crashed against the moon, if those things fell to the planet, the damage would be incalculable.
She thanked God that her sister was no longer there, but then, right where the explosion happened, she saw something, a circular structure, similar to a ring wrapped in fire, whatever it was, it was huge.
She quickly teleported to the castle observatory, focusing on the object, let out a breath of awe and fear, a fear mixed with emotion, that ring was huge, if the inner edges that she could barely see had mountains, seas, it seemed like a piece of a world reverse and form a ring, that thing was built, but Celestia worried about the damage that ring world have.
everything was on fire, it looked like an apocalypse in that place, several parts seemed to be missing in some sections, then small blue dots seemed, with the telescope I could not clearly see what they were, but some were huge, they began to move around the ring, ring that seemed to approach the moon at a moderate speed, but she calculated that it could crash on the moon, just to see the moon was positioned right in the center, Celestia had no doubts of the immense size, that moon was 9 thousand kilometers in diameter , and that thing covered it perfectly and space to spare, giving the illusion of an immense eye on fire to Equus.
Celestia internally cursed the political and social chaos that this will conjunct, praying that those aliens who casually answered the question of whether they were alone in the universe would take her on vacation for a while.
"This worked out better than I expected" - said Spark as his surroundings burned and exploded in the control room and probably throughout the facility.
Author's Note
This was a momentum moment, I don't think this story continues.
40% of the organic matter destroyed, loss of half of the water bodies due to loss of pressure or contamination by radiation, secondary and tertiary structures (sentry factories, weather stations, point weapons, etc.) partially lost or destroyed, facilities containment and experimentation intact.
Personnel available 40% of the total.
Major structural damage within the tolerable parameters, it is possible to repair.
Possible moon to undermine materials detected.
Habitable planet detected.
Intelligent life detected, settlements detected, consulting library.
Data not found, location unknown, impossible to detect known bodies.
Communication with other facilities cut, communication with the ark, cut.
Emergency slipspace protocol, disabled until location is known.
Installation status: incommunicate.
First contact protocol activated.
Restoration protocols in conflict with the first contact protocol, looking for alternatives….
Asteroid field detected, new mines available, do not present risks to the inhabitants.
Space anomalies detected, sun and moon symmetrical in size, both orbiting the planet.
Approximate diameter of both bodies 5 thousand kilometers.
Sending report and requesting instructions to monitor 343 guilty spark.
"134 hours of uninterrupted work and most secondary systems still fail!" - Spark shouted in the ring's communications network.
Although Spark was the most advanced artificial intelligence in the ring, it was not the only one.
Each installation within the ring had its own "caretaker", of less power but specifically designed to keep everything in order.
This was one of the reasons why a key or strategically important installation could survive even without a monitor.
Unfortunately, they could not, in Spark's words, engage in a civilized conversation.
That did not exclude the reprimand (out of frustration) of Spark by not even finishing the repairs.
After reading, and rereading, even corroborating the report on his own, Spark came to a conclusion, the emergency jump was altered by something unknown (perhaps energy fluctuations or solar radiation, alteration of coordinates, or even thanks to their new neighbors).
All communications were cut, including communication with the ark.
In theory, for the ark, the installation 04 is destroyed.
No security protocol explains what to do in these cases.
The battle net should work anywhere in the known universe thanks to quantum entanglement.
But thanks to the strange rules that the few instruments still functional have reported, there is no doubt that they are in another universe.
Spark almost exploded when he discovered it.
Spark's only consolation is the existence of an emergency protocol in case of direct or indirect destruction of the ark by the Flood.
'Hydra protocol'
In simple words, the surviving ring or rings will activate their firing sequence after 12 hours of losing communication, clearing the entire possible area and the key facilities will initiate their self-destruct sequence.
Immediately afterward, they would make an emergency jump to gather the rings in a single solar system in another galaxy, leaving the Milky Way.
In addition, the monitors will have free access to all the technologies for the development of a better defense, with this and using all the power and materials available they would begin the construction of two coffers.
The rings would create a safe area around the new galaxy, concentrating its efforts on creating a 15,000 light-years light-edge block from the edge, making it impossible to travel through the skid space into the safe area.
At the end of the construction of the coffers, an assembly would be held with the remaining monitors to add more species to the catalog, in parallel, more rings will be built and updated for a total of 12 (to complete the sliding space) that are capable of protecting their occupants of the effects of the rings.
In case of finding a level 5 to 1 civilization, contact the leader of the civilization or the most powerful faction and report on the situation, requesting their cooperation.
The most primitive civilizations will be cataloged and put into suspended animation.
All efforts should focus on protecting and safeguarding life, by any means necessary.
Leaving aside the sudden surge of information, this security measure almost caused Spark a short circuit when several alarms sounded by the installation's attempt to activate its firing sequence, if its installation was not so damaged, it would have automatically started the countdown, firing the facility and killed its new neighbors, unable to do anything to stop it.
Fortunately, that was not the case, thanks to extensive damage, the installation canceled that automatic measurement.
A funny story to tell your new neighbors later.
Although Spark would love to interact with these new ways of life, the installation was a priority, unfortunately, the pace was very slow thanks to the lack of "labor".
"We have enough materials, but we can't use them" - replied one of the engineers' commanders.
"I need the help of the engineers to keep the containment facilities operational," replied the caretaker of the flood samples.
These and a thousand more requests from caregivers bomb Spark.
Normally he would not have to mediate resources, but each caregiver fought the few engineers and builders that were available to maintain their facilities.
"Flood containment and experiments are a priority, which does not compromise the installation is relegated and the rest of the resources will be used to replace the sentry factories" - said Spark, receiving an affirmation from the other caretakers and cutting off the communication.
One of the first things to be repaired was the control room, it was practically redesigned and does not look anything like what it was, Spark still appreciated that it was possible to repair.
Upon leaving the control room Spark was wrapped in an environment that could only be described as gloomy.
The section he was in was one of the few that had been "intact," or at least partially intact.
The mountains surrounding the control room looked like Swiss cheese thanks to the meteorites, and the underground roads no longer existed.
In general, the entire mountainous section surrounding the control room was a disaster.
Even after being repaired, the control room was still submerged in rock and debris (the greatest damage had been from the collapse of the doors).
Moving from the area, Spark teleported to the cartographer.
What used to be confused with a paradise island now was nothing more than a desert.
The sea surrounding the island had evaporated from the heat and low pressures since this part of the ring had lost its shields a few moments.
Cracks of building sizes were on the ground revealing part of the internal structure, this section was one of the most damaged.
Another teleport and Spark appeared at the doors of the flood containment room.
The swampy place seemed intact, some animals were still heard.
This part of one of the most defended, although the huge Retriever of hundreds of meters shattered every few hundred meters is a sign that it was not free to keep this part protected.
Even parts of the ring were covered with glass by heat.
Fortunately, some sections were almost intact, its biome still green and some bodies of water.
There is still much to repair to welcome their new neighbors.
But Spark couldn't help worrying, what would they think of the protocol?
Spark was tempted to eliminate the flood samples, all investigations had been unsuccessful and maintaining something so dangerous in a universe outside of such a nightmare would be an attempt on life itself.
But he needed evidence to convince biologists that the flood was a danger, even if they didn't exist beyond the samples, maybe a second opinion would be helpful.
7 of June of 1011 BNM
One week, one week of chaos in every way.
Although Celestia was grateful that international tensions relaxed a little by the appearance of the ring, the public's pressure for answers to difficult things, even more for not having them.
A few hours after the appearance of the huge Stalliongrad structure, they sent a study collaboration proposal, since they were in a serious situation because of the food, they offered their infrastructure that had progressed by leaps and bounds in exchange for support.
They put the labor and land for the construction of observatories and a joint development for a space program (which surprisingly they were already developing) in exchange for financial and logistical support.
This was a treaty of collaboration and peace that Celestia dreamed of for years.
The Crystal Empire and New Maretonia joined the collaboration.
The changing empire was surprisingly silent, the troops on the border that strained the relationship (even more), had withdrawn, intelligence reports that most of their military assets had congregated in space development projects.
The same for your neighbors of the grifffon empire.
Olenia was still in full civil war with Equestria to help.
Everything pointed out that the world was in a space race, Celestia honestly did not know what they expected with this since all attempts to contact the installation's aliens had resulted in a failure since each attempt was answered with static.
That or simply could not (or wanted).
This was something that Celestia and nobody had the experience, what scared the princess the most were her intentions, that and the curiosity to know that she would have enough power to damage something so big.
And resistant.
4 days after the appearance of the huge ring, Celestia received a report from one of its cities, a reconnaissance squad had found a fragment that had fallen a few kilometers from the Everfree forest.
The size of a small house, it took 5 heavy tanks and a special structure to tow it to the city.
Her scientists, with the help of Twilight, were fascinated with the piece of metal.
The material designated as Eterium, could withstand high pressures and extreme temperature changes, everything bounced, not even an atom could detach, that piece of metal was the toughest thing in Equss.
Only high tensions and extreme temperatures (higher than her sun) could do some damage.
The fascinating thing is that at the molecular level it looked like a spider web, each molecule woven over another with great precision.
Never in her long life did she expect to hear that they begged to be sent to the moon.
Celestia had to clarify that their spell cast them with the moon, they could not move, they would be ethereal.
And Luna, her poor sister was upset, to say the least, it took her three hours to convince her not to use the moon as a rock to break the ring, besides it would not be a good idea to provoke a civilization with an unknown power.
Things got worse when the stars began to be collected by the ring.
Before Luna could do anything, Celestia had to calm her down by saying that they probably needed it given the enormous damage to her installation.
It was that or that those huge machines will come down to undermine the planet.
It took time, but Luna accepted, even though at night she sharpened her sword while cursing the ring.
In her desperation for answers Celestia had called Discord, maybe he knew something.
By pouring another cup of tea, maybe it could help calm her nerves and stress.
"I knew you wanted my dear princess on your lips" - said Discord cup-shaped, which after a little scream, Celestia threw it on the wall.
From the pieces appeared small Discords, looking quite hurt, even one mourned the supposed death of another.
"Enough of games Discord !, I'm not in the mood for your jokes" - said Celestia angrily, but with a slight blush on her face.
"Very well, God, my apologies for wanting to make your day, what do you need from me, Celestia?" - asked Discord while floating with some popcorn.
"Do you know anything about a huge ring in the sky? Have you seen anything like it before?"
"I'm afraid not, it's something new, but I already anticipated your request your majesty" - Discord said as he snapped his fingers, making a fairly large screen appear.
"What you do does not matter to me as long as there is chaos and as long as it does not harm my dear Fluttershy, but that thing gives me a bad feeling" - said Discord while an image appeared on the screen.
Celestia knew that the ring had been damaged, but the position in which the ring was placed on the moon made further investigations impossible.
A shattered wasteland, even the dragon lands were gardens compared to what she was seeing on the screen.
Some places were still on fire, Canterlot-sized holes in the ground let the machinery underneath.
"What the hell happened? ..." - whispered Celestia.
"I do not know, in the short time I managed to explore only certain parts seemed intact, or at least partially intact, I did not find anyone on the surface except those strange metal flying birds" - said Discord while on the screen appeared an image of All the guys he got to see.
"They are very varied, ranging from 40 centimeters to about 500 meters, I tried to bring one but they seem to be resistant to magic, even mine" - said Discord with strange seriousness.
Changing the image again, the screen showed more things at ground level, there was a lot of debris, even small silver mountains, or at least that Celestia thought before knowing the dimensions of those robots.
Noticing Celestia's face, Discord amplified the image in one of those small mountains.
"I knew you would notice, those things are not mountains" - said Discord, while admiring the huge pile of deformed metal.
"The most powerful thing we have are the prototypes of mega-spells, if without immune to magic and assuming they are made of the same material we found ..."
"Nothing could stop them if they decided to attack us, even with my help, but relax my pastry friend, I doubt that is the case" - Discord said as he casually switched to another image.
"Just as our magic is immune to them, we are invisible to them, they are unable to see something hidden by magic, at least they didn't see me with my invisibility cloak" - in the picture was a photo of Discord stroking One of the metal birds.
"Besides the material that your soldiers found I think is more of the structure, I happened to see how a rock moved accidentally crushing a metal bird, and before you say something, it wasn't me, you saw the state in which that is place "- Discord said while passing a black and white movie of the tragic scene.
Celestia did not know if she was relieved that if something happened they could defend themselves or worried about whatever it was that made such a structure so damaged decided to finish the job and on the way to her little planet.
"Any sign of the inhabitants of the ring other than those ... .. birds?" - asked Celestia.
"Nothing, unless they hide under the surface or are dead, I didn't find anything else," said Discord as he closed the screen with a click.
"... what do you think of this? It is not common for you to be so cooperative with something that is not your fun"
"I also care about Fluttershy, but as I said before, that thing gives me a bad feeling, something tells me that it hides something very dangerous, I don't like it, it reminds me of your disturbed student"
"... Rosa," Celestia whispered sadly.
"Hey, at least you tried, even your daughter eventually returned to her path, two out of three is better than just one, don't you think?"
"Thanks Discord, you can go" - said Celestia tiredly.
"Do not worry, I will keep an eye on that ring until the meteorites do not fall from the sky, so unless Lulu provokes them to play with their things I think they come in peace" - said Discord as he disappeared into an outburst.
At least Discord's information helped her calm her nerves a lot, they still had time to prepare, and there was truth in Discord's words, they could undermine the planet or the Moon, but instead, they prefer to interfere as little as possible.
That is comforting, at least they could initiate a dialogue when whatever controls these birds.
But such variety and power, even the largest of those birds were the sizes of a destroyer, and there were hundreds, a whole military nightmare.
Trying to calm her discomfort, she began to write a report of the situation, her allies needed to know this information.
Spark was very happy, also very shocked.
His installation had unlocked the ability to make extra equipment and classified, in the last moments of the war, the Forerunners had used the rings to store artifacts of different types.
Normally, access to this technology would be restricted, only accessible to humans.
Fortunately, among the technology available in the ring were a type of prototype high-speed construction engineer.
Spark was unaware of their existence until after processing all the new information available after the memory banks were unlocked.
Thanks to them, the speed of repair and construction increased 1239%, managing to finish the repairs in just under two weeks.
Except from some reports of a strange creature appear throughout the installation sometimes, along with a very chaotic disaster in a major part of the sentinel factory, everything else was going great.
The only thing missing was replacing the biomass in the ring.
Almost all wildlife was wiped out, only a few had been saved, of the 1,230 "native" species in the ring, only 3 survived, although their DNA strands were stored in the library, replenishing the population would be a task of at least one couple of years.
But everything else was presentable, the atmosphere was breathable throughout the ring and the temperature had stabilized.
Flying over one of the huge weather facilities, Spark couldn't help but see what could have been a disaster.
Many things had been damaged, including communication and damage evaluation systems, a large crack had almost split the ring in half, if the containment shields had not contained the two sections together, the pieces of the ring may had bombarded the planet of its neighbors.
Spark almost exploded from fright (something very common in the last 4 weeks) when he went to check one of the peaks of resource use and found that huge gap.
Teleporting to the cartographer, Spark couldn't help but enthusiastically analyze the planet's surface data for the first time, there were many species, all barely reaching the gates of the industrial age.
Although in certain places the cartographer could not give clear information.
Deciphering the languages of each species had not been a problem, radio waves gave a lot of information to analyze, including national divisions and countries.
"Connecting to Equestria's emergency network, I need to speak to their representatives, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna" - Spark said with barely contained emotion.
"You are useing on a private channel for military use, identify yourself" - answered a deep voice.
"Right, my apologies, I am 343 guilty spark, monitor of installation 04"
"....., identify yourself, your affiliation and rank, the use of this channel is a violation of international treaties of North Ice and can be considered as an act of war" - said the voice with much more urgency, or despair.
Analyzing the information on the planet's situation a little more, it seems that in recent years they have suffered from various political tensions that almost erupted into war, their arrival in the system seems to have helped to reduce tensions.
Although perhaps using a military radio channel to communicate was not a good idea considering that it is a violation of your privacy.
"I'm sorry, the emotion consumed me, I already gave you my name, and my rank too, in your words I am the ruler of my installation, and currently I am right next to your moon."
"........"
"Hello??"
Celestia was not happy at all, but not angry either, rather the tiredness of the last weeks was enough to make all emotion leave her body.
The tensions with the other continent, in addition to the very strange movements of the queen, seemed to decrease, everything was running well.
Making it to her bed, the princess prepared herself to sleep even with her royal decorations on, hours ago she let the sun go down, leaving detailed instructions to leave everything to Luna, nothing could go wrong for her well-deserved sleep.
"PRINCESS !!, we need your help, Princess Luna urgently needs you in the communications room!" - a guard shouted while the door thundered by the call.
Celestia almost considered a trip, the moon would be a very quiet place to sleep.
Leaving all grace and glamor, Celestia teleported to the communications room, the first thing she saw woke her up a little more, all quiet, only Luna and a very nervous lieutenant was there, while the screens showed the huge ring in the sky.
Just before asking what was going on, Luna noticed her and spoke first.
"I'm so sorry sister, we understand that you're tired, but this is beyond us" - Luna said with a nervous look, it had almost been worth it for Celestia to get up, small pleasures.
"A few minutes ago, the military defense frequency was violated by an entity identified as Guilty Spark, supposed ruler of the object in orbit, requesting to speak to you, princesses" - said the lieutenant almost perfectly normal, Celestia made a note to give him a vacation for staying calm.
"Lieutenant, you can go, we are not allowed to be interrupted until the talks are over"- said Celestia.
Securing the room with magic, Luna only saw her sister with a calm that she couldn't help but admire.
Celestia wanted nothing more than to die.
Taking the radio with their magic, Celestia and Luna felt something like the terror of uncertainty, their world was in a time of chaos never seen in 1000 years, only to be visited by a strange civilization that, at first glance, had no comparison .
Prepared to speak with an intelligence beyond their understanding, a herald of knowledge and wisdom, they spoke not in the name of Equestira, but of all Equus.
"I am the princess of Equestria, Celestia Solaris, along with my sister, Princess Luna Selene, on behalf of our whole world, we welcome you" - said Celestia.
"Greetings, I am the monitor of installation 04, I am 343 Guilty Spark, my role is to take care of this facility, or I was, my current role is to help coordinate a flood resistance and safeguard all possible biodiversity according to protocol, both are cordially invited to the installation" - said Spark, in a metallic voice.
Both princesses didn't know what to say, Celestia almost exploded with hysterical laughter, Luna could only see her sister trembling, she mistook it for something good.
Celestia only hoped that things would be easier, and not something related to the end of the world.
Spark only waited for the response from the organics, in his opinion, it was the most effective presentation, perhaps the best that any other monitor could give, if its creators would read his subsequent report, perhaps they would even have given him a position in the advice.
Preparing a gargantua-class transport ship , Spark quickly ordered his workers to begin preparing to receive their potential guests.
Being rulers of the most powerful nation, counting on their cooperation to coordinate a unification would make the job of cataloging life on the planet much easier, although these are plans for the very future, the installation would take longer to regain the ability to sustain biological life.
"We are willing to enter into peace talks, although it would take us several more months to be able to go, our space technology is still under development" - answered a voice, different from that of Princess Celestia, comparing the information obtained from radio transmissions Spark identified the voice as Princess Luna.
That pleasantly surprised Spark, although they are at the beginning of their space-age, the sensors still have a lot of damage, Spark would swear that they were only in the industrial era, but perhaps having so many species some countries were more developed than others.
He was also quite intrigued by the "magic" issue, perhaps some kind of neural physics.
Thinking a moment, maybe it would be good to let them do it on their own, that would give them time to make the environment more enjoyable, the smoke and black might not be very pleasant.
"Very well, I will be waiting for your arrival, I request that you send me the time and place of the launch, I will personally escort you for a safe trip to my facility"
Receiving confirmations and something akin to good wishes, Spark rushed to his job, planning as far as he personally was concerned, his most important task, a tourist guide.
29 of June of 1011 BNM
Things would be worse, though Gabriela Eagleclaw never will say it, since the death of her cousin, king Grover V, things had become very complicated.
Power struggles, ideologies, civil war, conquests, and more.
Well, she thanked heaven that at least the whole country had been centralized, she and her "beloved" husband had managed to centralize a political base, although the marriage was the last thing she had planned for her life, at least it brought peace for all by the union of two powerful countries.
While her husband took care of the military aspect, she took care of the administration of the country, she could swear that a few years ago she would be in Equestria studying to be a diplomat, who would have thought that she would now be a queen.
Things became more interesting since the appearance of the ring on the moon, one day the moon was normal, and the next it looked like an eye.
It took all her patience to calm her husband so as not to provoke a war with Equestria on suspicion of espionage.
At least the princesses had clarified the situation, in addition to proposing a technological coalition, thanks to which now the country is on a par with technological development, perhaps they could even be the firsts to put the first creature in space.
While she was having tea and reading some documents about the crystal trade with the crystal empire, there was a knock on her door.
"You can enter" - she said in a soft voice.
"My queen, some messengers have just arrived from the north, demand an immediate audience" - said the maid.
"from the north?, and with what authority do they demand an audience?" - said Gabriela.
"... the Arcturian Order, under the law of the great call of light, my queen" - said the servant, not even believing her own words.
"The order? That law had not been used since ... oh, shit" - Gabriela said.
