Research on pony kind
24 august 1003
My name is Vinyl Scratch. I normally only stick to building weird electronic machines, like my bass cannon or my dubstep dishwasher. Two days ago, though, Princess Celestia asked me to conduct some research about us ponies. I don't know why but it must be important. She seemed sad or maybe even a bit depressed, so I said yes. The only thing she gave me was some blood samples; she said they were of her own blood. She asked me to study them, and also offered me the use of one of the official royal laboratories. For now, I can only search through storybooks or other texts while I'm waiting for the lab to become available.
25 august 1003
I went to Ponyville’s library today since Twilgiht Sparkle, the best student of Princess Celestia, lives there and she had read almost every book of Equestria history, where as I thought none of them even specifically mentioned anything about the history of ponies. Even though I asked her to look for one, and she looked as hard as she could, she just couldn’t find a book that talks about what happened before year 0, when Celestia banished her sister to the moon.
Twilight was a bit disturbed by it; she’d never really thought about it before and thus didn’t know much of anything about before the year 0. It piqued her interest, though, and she started to do research on the side about what was before that year. I didn't say a word about Celestia’s request, only that I was interested in Equestria history. Even though it was her student that I was getting help from, it was only proper to honor the Princess’s request.
Later that day, I tried some experiments with my horn to study unicorn magic. I'm the only unicorn available around that will totally say yes to any of my experiments, so I took the risk even if it was something that could turn out either dangerous or totally harmless. I was just trying to figure out how horns really work. At school for the gifted unicorn, even if I failed most of the classes and got kicked out because I wasn't “good enough” at magic, I learned how to use my horn, but no one really wanted to know where magic comes from or why we unicorns can even use magic to begin with - just that we can use it and can learn how to use it more effectively.
I didn’t learn much; I don't really have the tools to analyze anything about the horn itself. All I know is that when I use magic, there is a tingly feeling on my forehead that I don't feel when I don't use magic. I don’t think it’s really anything important, just something that tells me that I'm actually using magic. I think I will need to dust off my old magic schoolbooks to remind myself of some of the basics. Maybe there is some hint in those books as to how magic really works.
27 August 1003
I couldn't find my old school magic books. Tavi helped me to search them over the past few days. I was able to continue my experiment on my horn, focusing more on the magic flow in it. It was hard because the scientific process is really fast but from what I’ve been able to gather, the magic actually starts from the base of the horn and travels up, filling it up from the base to the edge before starting to glow. That doesn't tell me anything much, really, but it reminded me that in our books we have a picture of a horn that shows the magic flow and tell us that we have to concentrate on making our vital energy or magic to go in our horn and then release it. That could come in handy as I’m performing my research.
[Image of the horn comming soon]
I don't have anypony to conduct research on Pegasi and Earth Ponies so far but at school we already have been told that Earth ponies and Pegasi are less magical, but that this doesn’t mean they aren’t magical at all. Something isn’t quite right about that; cutie marks are clearly produced by magic and each cutie mark is essentially the same thing if you think about it, a picture that show to other ponies what is our talent. So if cutie marks are produced by magic... then why are all cutie marks are the same if they are produced by magic but some types of ponies have less magic then others? If it was true, then there would be a major difference between Earth Ponies’ cutie marks and the cutie marks of the other two breeds.
My research is getting interesting. I started with a sample of our beloved Princess’s blood and I ended up thinking about our cutie marks… and I haven’t even done anything with the samples yet. Anyways, I feel like there’s something wrong, either with our cutie marks or with the magic levels of the different breeds of ponies.
29 August 1003
I took a break today. I wanted to have some time with my marefriend Tavi. I didn't tell anyone about my research yet, but I received a letter from our Princess today. The letter said that I will get my lab on the first of September so until then, I will take a break from my research. Tavi is worried about why I spend so much time these days absorbed in my work, and… well, I’ve never liked it when Tavi is worried about me.
3 September 1003
It’s been almost a week since I’ve written in this journal… Today was the day that I got the lab that the Princess promised me. I finally admitted to Tavi about what I was working on and just like I thought, she wanted to help me in any way possible. I really don’t feel comfortable about actually performing any experiments on her, so I told her that she could just help me out with some small, non-dangerous things around the lab.
Our Princess showed me the lab personally; it’s a really high tech one and I couldn’t be happier about that. I will be able to work easily here. She showed me some stuff that I didn’t even know what it was, while she was giving me the tour. I think I’m going to be able to do my research very easily here.
After she left, I started to work a bit. I was really glad when I found a Magic Power Calculator, or MPC. It measures the amount of magic and its power when you point it at something. I don’t even know if all those tool were used before; they all look like they’re brand new.
The first thing I tried is to know how much magic and how much power our body use to create a cutie mark. When I performed the experiment, it read:
Amount : 15 Mv
Power : 3,14 Ma
Unpredictability : ~1,2 Mu
I think the M means Magic and V stands for Volt, and A for Amperes, so if I'm right it works a bit like electricity. This third piece of information is a bit troubling, though, because isn’t magic supposed to be inherently unstable and unpredictable? And if a cutie mark is at 1.2, by assuming that 1 is the minimum, then that means that there really isn’t much room for unpredictability… This is very odd.
I scanned my whole body with it then and near the chest it said :
Amount : 20,25 Mv
Power : ~7,77 Ma
Unpredictability : 1 Mu
Near the head:
Amount : 45 to 48 Mv
Power : ~13,66 Ma
Unpredicability : ~3,2 Mu
This one surprised me, but maybe the high Mu count simply means that the mind is unpredictable. I still need to figure out what it is exactly, but that tells me that the brain uses magic to work since the Ma is higher and also that maybe our brain creates the magic, judging by how the MV is high and seems to fluctuate. Speaking of that, I also notice that higher the Mu is, more it fluctuates too. It seems to be totally stable when it’s exactly at 1 Mu, though.
The number for the Mv are constant and always precise but the power’s number is never round; there is always endless decimals after it. I don’t know yet whether or not this is something important.
When i scanned any other part of my body it showed this :
Amount : 5 Mv
Power : ~1,86 Ma
Unpredictability : ~1,02 Mu
This is what i mostly expected; why would my leg or my tail use as much as magic as my head or my heart? It wouldn't make any sense. The Mu intrigues me now; it’s not 1 like our chest but 1.02, so what makes our chest more predictable then the rest of our body?
I tried my horn for the fun and the results were really different from any other part. So far the Ma sort of follows the MV but it showed something odd as well:
Amount : 65 Mv
Power : 0,5 Ma
Unpredictability : 0,5 Mu
So there’s a lot of magic flowing in our horn permanently? It’s strange; why would our horn be constantly storing magic when the magic’s not being used? And so far the Mu never goes under 1, not even when magic is being used.
Amount : -65 to 65 Mv
Power : ~22,34 Ma
Unpredictability : 1 to 1,5 Mu
Since when can volts be negative? It’s a quantity; it’s not supposed to be able to go into negatives. For the Power it was predictable that when we use magic, it’s more a matter of power, but what I don't get is that the MV doesn't get higher; it just wavers between what it already was – 65 MV – and then goes down to its negative opposite. I really don’t get it…
I only scanned myself, so this may not be the same for all unicorns. I could try to test an Earth Pony, but if I do, it’s not going to be Tavi. I already promised her that I wouldn’t include her in any of my actual experiements.