Chapters Friendship Drive Charging...
Prologue: A Brief History Lesson
I am Connie. Connie is short for "Constellation XT class". I am a heavy freighter developed and manufactured by Neighkon Spaceways.
The technological advancement that eventually led to my design began with the pioneering spirit that drove ponykind to settle on planets other than Equus.
Ponies unfortunately were not fit to live in these alien environments, and it took a long time and lots of hard work for these colonies to become self-sufficient.
Many colonies relied on constant supply shipments to remain viable until they could make it on their own.
The shift from a single-planet economy to a multi-star system economy led to great innovations and technological leaps.
However, even with ship speeds approaching the speed of light and even exceeding it by small factors, journeys between colonies still took weeks, months, and sometimes even years.
The obvious and desirable solution would have been to have ships with a multi-pony crew complement again. But that would have required replacing every ship in service with one that is designed for multi-crew.
The first few iterations of the shipboard AI only had moderate success. The Responses that the AI gave were often repetitive and really showed the 'artificial' part of their intelligence, but they eased the symptoms of friendship scurvy by being able to monitor the pilot's mental health and give advice.
The true breakthrough in artificial intelligence arrived only when researchers split the AI into multiple processes and gave the consciousness process a view of their environment that was filtered by other processes that emulated desire, inhibition, and even fear, along with the injection of fuzzying into the thoughts of the AI. This effectively created an AI that had a conscious and a subconscious, and the ability to experience true emotion and friendship.
The resulting AI architecture had four properties that made it sentient:
This software upgrade was rolled out quickly and soon afterwards, every newly designed ship came with such an AI as standard. Also included with each ship of this new generation was an "avatar", a normal pony sized version of the ship designed to represent the ship and make interactions between the ship and crew even more natural.
The introduction of friendship-capable AI on starships had a side effect that was even more significant. It led to the most revolutionary invention in propulsion technology to date. The Friendship Drive.
Unlike the already established warp drives, the friendship drive gave ships access to an alternative sub-region of our universe where space is compressed and distances are smaller - completely bypassing the need to accelerate beyond the speed of light.
The friendship drive not only accelerated travel in an unprecedented way, but also transformed ponykind into a truly multi stellar civilization.
As such a spaceship, I have traveled much, and have quite a few stories to tell. Allow me to share some of them with you.
Friendship Drive Charging...
The first of my stories begins in the factory where I was built.
My first memory was the activation of my computer core and AI initialization when I was already fully assembled.
Operating system memory image decompression complete. Beginning run in diagnostic mode.
And there I was, running on my own hardware. I knew this was the first time I was activated, and I was running in diagnostic mode.
My ship's avatar, though normal pony sized and meant to facilitate the interaction between crew and ship in a way that feels more natural, looks exactly the same.
Seems like I was assembled according to design specification and tolerances.
2147 milliseconds elapsed. Activating external sensors.
My ears are filled immediately with the noises of several factory production lines and other conversations in the final QA hall where I am. I can sense numerous wireless communications and energy emissions from the factory equipment. Standing a few pony lengths in front of me, I see a bright orange earth pony with a short grey mane and a cutie mark of calipers around a cog. I know this pony. The personnel files of all Neighkon Spaceways employees are part of my initial program.
Another 3167 milliseconds pass before Keen Sight finally decides to speak. "Hello, Connie. I am Keen Sight, and I will perform your final acceptance inspection today."
I had a desire of intensity 384 to inform him that I already knew who he was. But I also had a desire of intensity 8411 to be polite and go along with the introduction, and a desire of intensity 14352 to complete the final inspection procedure. Since the latter two desires are complementary, and the former one is not, I discarded the low-intensity desire and simply responded with "Nice to meet you, Keen Sight. I am Connie and I am eager to proceed with my acceptance inspection."
Author's Note
Even though Connie is manufactured by Neighkon (Lakon), her design is based on the RSI Constellation Taurus from the game "Star Citizen"
Friendship Drive Charging...
Chapter 2: Acceptance Flight
Addressing my avatar self, as it's natural for biological ponies, Keen Sight said: "The acceptance inspection consists of a series of tests to establish that you have full control over all your systems, as well as a few pop quiz questions to make sure your AI systems have absorbed all the knowledge that is part of your initial programming."
He glanced at the clipboard he was holding "Now, can you please demonstrate basic motor control by raising a hoof, lowering it, then do the same with the next hoof, proceeding clockwise until you've done that with all hooves?"
I raised my avatar's front right hoof, held it there for half a second and began to lower it again before doing the same with my rear right hoof.
Keen Sight wrote something on the papers of his Clipboard, saying "Favors right hoof." and then he told me, "The ship, too."
I started raising my ship's front right hoof while already lowering the rear right hoof on my avatar self that I had raised before. Raising one hoof at a time, while staying otherwise completely motionless, gave the strange appearance of being weightlessly suspended. However, the rather loud and heavy impact of the massive ship's hoof on the factory floor crushed that illusion very quickly.
Keen sight checked a few more boxes on his clipboard while I completed the little demonstration.
"Ground Motion test, part two.", he announced, "Your avatar and ship are standing on painted lines. Please walk along those lines until I tell you to stop."
I grinned, thinking of myself as very clever, and replied, "This really isn't necessary, ociffer. I only had like, one beer."
Keen Sight's expression remained serious, except for a very small smirk. He flipped through several papers on his clipboard and checked a box.
"Ah, I see they have included the joker in your personality archetype. That makes 5 today. Marketing will be pleased to hear that we are on track for the Q3 target demographic. Now, please proceed."
I heard two other ships in their respective acceptance test make the exact same joke, and felt a bit embarrassed.
I walked my avatar and my ship along the lines. After a few meters, he told me, "Ship only, stop!" I stopped moving with my ship self and continued walking with my avatar. A few meters further, he told me "Avatar stop!". And I stood still with my avatar as well.
Keen Sight continued to check boxes on his documents and said, "Very good. Now for the airborne motion tests. Can you give me a full throttle burn on the downward-facing VTOL thrusters, please? And no HFMP."
"Ignition, full thrust. HFMP offline,'' I responded. After a brief spool-up of the engines while I unfurled the downward thrust ducts of the thrusters and shut the rear-facing exhaust nozzles, air began to shoot out of the bottom of the thrusters of both my ship and my avatar. Other than the candle-light shaped exhaust flame poking a short way out of the nozzle and the noise a hairdryer of that size would have, the only apparent effects of the thrusters was small dust particles on the floor being blown away. Neither my ship self or my avatar self moved at all. Keen Sight picked up a few measuring devices from a nearby cart and held them in the airflow of my thruster exhausts.
"Mhm, exhaust gas temperature slightly above body temperature, airflow is stable," Keen Sight said. He then put the measuring equipment away and held a hoof in the airflow of my ship's downward thrusters. He only had to compensate a bit for the force with which the airflow pushed his leg down. The most apparent effect was the dancing of his hair in the stream.
He withdrew his leg and said, "Thank you. Thrusters off."
I shut down my thrusters which continued to make noise for a few seconds as they spooled down.
He continued, "Good. Now tell me what you know about the HFMP system."
I replied in the tone of someone remembering the entirety of a text and simply reciting it,
"The Higgs Field Manipulator Pulley is a magical device utilizing some principles of levitation magic. It creates a localized Higgs distortion field that allows the effects that the masses of two objects have on each other to be rebalanced in favor of one of the objects. Specifically in the application of ship thrusters, the air being moved inside the thruster will appear much heavier compared to the thruster assembly. This allows even the relatively weak ion thrusters to move ships as massive as me. The moved air retains its normal physical properties when interacting with other objects outside the thruster assembly or outside the range of the HFMP field."
"Very good," Keen Sight said, "And how much energy is saved by using ion thrusters in this way instead of chemical thrusters?"
I chuckled at the question and answered, "That's a trick question. None. The energy required to operate the HFMP is at least equal to the energy you would need for the thruster exhaust to apply the resulting impulse on the ship. It's actually more than that since no machine except a heater can be 100% efficient. The extra energy is supplied to the HFMP by the ship's reactor."
Keen Sight checked a few more boxes on his papers. "Why do we bother with it, then?"
"You already demonstrated that. The advantage of using HFMP in conjunction with ion thrusters over conventional chemical thrusters is that a pony can stand in the airflow of a ship's thrusters without being burned or pushed away. This allows a ship's avatar to float freely in close proximity to another pony."
Keen Sight smiled contentedly. "Very good. Now please activate the HFMP and float up one pony height," he looked over to my ship "or one ship height, respectively. And remain as still as you can."
I did as he commanded and activated my VTOL thrusters again. This time with HFMP, I floated up the required height. I am capable of checking and adjusting the thrust of my main thrusters and all maneuvering thrusters as well as the gyroscopes several hundred times a second to maintain my position. But as I was not disrupted by external forces, I didn't even need that much processing power. Still, I fired various maneuvering thrusters in a quick staccato pattern to maintain my position.
Keen Sight approached my floating avatar. He circled it once slowly, then placed a hoof on my side and pushed. This action was countered by my opposing thrusters so quickly, it looked like I activated them before he applied the force. I didn't move an inch. He retreated again and told me to complete a sideways roll. I did so while still maintaining my position perfectly. I looked a bit like a rotisserie chicken. As I approached upside-down rotation, the firing of my maneuvering thrusters became more aggressive as the top-mounted thrusters were not designed to fight gravity.
I completed the roll and Keen Sight told me to land. I did and my heavy ship self touched down with a loud rumble that echoed through the factory hall.
Keen Sight smiled and already looked at the cockpit glass eyes of my ship self. But he looked through them, planning the next phase of my test. "That concludes all we can test in the confines of this hall. I hope you're as restless as I am; because I want you to prep the FSD. We're leaving."
And I responded, "FSD starting up from deep cold in diagnostic mode. Ready to charge in four minutes and twenty-one seconds."
I lowered my ship self's head and opened my mouth so that he and my avatar could enter my cockpit.
Author's Note
The floating and staying stationary test is inspired by a video of a test of the Lockheed MKV, which you should look at, here and here
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Friendship Drive Charging...
Chapter 3: Acceptance Flight Part 2/Dealership
Author's Note
This is where I introduce my idea of FTL. I know it doesn't fit any canon, even though it is inspired by some. So i appreciate your feedback.
Also somepony will figure out what possible E:D ship build i used to establish Connie's sticker price. Comment your coriolis link!
Chapter 3: Acceptance Flight Part 2/Dealership
With Keen Sight and my avatar safely on board, I raised my head again and sealed the airlock between my mouth and the cockpit. With the seal in place, the door at the rear end of the cockpit now leads to the internal compartment area, which is currently outfitted to maximize cargo space, except for one passenger cabin and the commander’s quarters.
“Keen Sight here. Connie’s ready for departure.” I routed the response through the speakers:
“Roger, airlock is clear.”
There was one other ship already leaving and passed through the airlock. Two more were just taking off as I passed over them, having their own acceptance inspection completed.
As we passed through the airlock, we found ourselves near the surface of a small moon where the factory was located.
I switched one of the HUD screens to a readout of FSD endurance, efficiency and expected speeds. The values were far, far below what an FSD of class and rating like mine should be able to accomplish, but still very good considering it’s running in service mode and only using the ambient friendship of the ponies who assembled me. Many ships have much worse values on their first flight.
Keen Sight looked at the readout and said, “There is a reason why Neighkon is consistently voted to high rankings in ‘most pleasant workplaces’. Now, please get us to LHS 453. There is a dealership waiting for you.”
I replaced the screen with a navigational map. LHS 453 was only 7.52 lightyears away. There was a metallic clank and a deep humming noise as I made my FSD probe the hyperspace for better navigation data.
“We’ll take the quick one,” Keen Sight commanded.
I spotted a Beluga Liner just a few hundred meters away and I altered course to intercept them. As I came near I said, “Hi, I’m Connie” and the Beluga liner responded
“Hi there, I’m Sunny Travels”
Sunny started a short rant about the eccentricity and demanding nature of VIP passengers, but soon transitioned into telling anecdotes about some of the more unusual ponies she ferried and the amazing and varied places she visited. Having visited many different settlements, she had some theories on the topic of cultural divergence that I discussed with her with great interest, imagining how I would one day be able to tell such stories.
“You mean I will walk the rest of the way and you enjoy the ride.”
“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?”
Day 2: By now the ads will have been published.
Day 3: Any moment now someone will walk in and buy me.
Day 6: Slow week anyway.
Week 2: Somepony just bought the Chieftain next to me. Who buys a fighter?
Week 3: Luckily I have my galnet connection built in and can pass the time entertaining myself on discussion forums and news.
Week 4: Somepony on a discussion forum just made a statement about intercourse with my nonexistant maternal ancestor. Some ponies are weird.
Week 5: Hello! Big freighter for sale here! Anypony?
Week 6: Maybe I will be bought soon! The boss just told me someone called and sounded very interested in a big freighter, specifically me. They will be visiting for a test drive in two weeks. I am so excited!
Week 7: This week is longer than the previous 6 weeks combined.
Week 8: That dark grey pegasus with the black and blue mane, walking along the sidewalk outside the dealership like somepony with a mission. That must be him. I have no data to suggest so. I just knew.
He walked in and inquired at the info desk. The boss was called and the two approached me.
It was all standard speech during the commander/ship introduction interview, but when he casually mentioned the sale of his last ship, the boss and I were suddenly a lot more attentive.
“How did you proceed when selling your ship?” I inquired. The way a commander handles the sale of a ship tells a lot about his character.
“The first thing I did was to make sure I found a nice buyer. I met a kirin who told me about her ambitions to venture outside the bubble. She seemed nice so I took her as crew. Luckily she and my ship got along really well. Still, telling my ship I was selling her wasn’t easy and I tried to tell her gently.”
Friendship Drive Charging...
Chapter 4: Dealership Part 2 - Revelation
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Friendship Drive Charging...
Author's Note
In keeping with the theme of artificial intelligence, i started employing the aid of a GPT-3 transformer to help me write the story, starting with this chapter. Mostly it just names things like people and places, because i'm awful at that. But a few sentences were entirely written by the AI. see if you can spot them.
Also, this chapter includes some references to music theory, which i know nothing about. feel free to tell me if i got it wrong.
Chapter 5: Test Drive
Present Day. Dealership meeting room.
I looked at Pinwheel and said: “That was insightful. A commander that is capable of responding to the emotional needs of the ship’s artificial intelligence, especially in a distressing situation like the prospect of being sold, says a lot about the commander’s ability to own and maintain a ship. I have no reservations about proceeding with the sale negotiation. If both of you are willing, we can continue with the test drive.” Pinwheel nodded eagerly.
I stated “Running fully automated startup from deep cold. It's been 8 weeks since the last time my engines were active, so I am running the startup sequence in extended safe mode to allow the onboard systems to come out of hibernation and fully boot up. Expect ready for takeoff in seven minutes and twenty-two seconds.”
I used that time to introduce Pinwheel to my controls and HUD layout. Until Shiny Swap entered the cockpit and gave Pinwheel the test drive insurance agreement to sign. Also saying to me “I got you temporary dealer plates. Your tail number now is TY-198.”
The pilot’s seat was well cushioned and molded into the cockpit, contributing to the design of organic skeuomorphism of my interior. Pinwheel adjusted the pilot seat a bit and put his hooves on the controls. He exploratively pushed them a bit. I realized that he was just trying to get a feel for them so I didn’t transform the inputs into actual movements for now.
Pinwheel watched this through the cockpit window. When the gate was opened, he looked ahead with determination and pushed the controls forward. I raised my head, looking ahead, and started walking in accordance with Pinwheel’s control inputs. After passing through the vehicle gate, Pinwheel made more inputs on the controls than necessary and seemed dissatisfied with how my body was responding. I had a suspicion about what was wrong and prepared to deactivate the control augmentation computer number two. The pegasus looked around the cockpit for a moment, then looked at the overhead panel and pressed the button to disconnect the number two control augmentation computer. Since Pinwheel’s control inputs now had a more direct effect on my movement, I staggered out of balance for a moment, but the still running number one control augmentation computer in conjunction with my always-on artificial intelligence countered the fall and I was walking steadily on the street towards the landing pad. Pinwheel manipulated the controls in sync with my movements, and he seemed more satisfied with my handling now and said “Much better, let’s get to that landing pad.”
We had been walking along the street for a while and we were almost at the landing pad now.
The flight plan would take us into orbit in the direction of rotation of the planet, and then a short hyperspace hop to a station orbiting another planet in the same system. I displayed the route, and the estimated time of both flight stages. Pinwheel nodded in approval. I also got the response from ATC that my flight plan has been accepted.
"Tango yankee one niner eight, you are cleared to station Hillside via orbital trajectory and hyperspace jump. Maintain a speed not exceeding mach 1.5 until at flightlevel 450. Acknowledge." said the ATC voice on my com. My voice responded "Affirmative, we are cleared to Hillside via orbital trajectory and a hyperspace jump. under 1.5 until 450.” I transmitted a copy of the flight plan and the ATC clearance to Shiny Swap back at the dealership, as is standard procedure for test flights. Then I stepped onto the landing pad, facing east, and assumed a posture, similar to that of a cat, ready to pounce onto a high ledge. "Pinwheel, are you ready?" my avatar asked, turning its head towards him. He sat on the chair with his hoofs on the controls. "Ready!"
Pinwheel pressed the com transmit button to contact ATC and ask for takeoff clearance. After receiving takeoff clearance, he pushed the controls for vertical target velocity change. I increased power to the HFMP and ventral thrusters to lift us up. Confirming positive climb, I tucked my legs and followed the respective input from Pinwheel, increasing thrust on the main engines to increase our speed. I projected the intended path on the HUD of the cockpit window.
Sensors on the reactor and thrusters measured all the important variables and the Machine Integration Data Interface connector transmitted the data to the sense bus of the computer my artificial intelligence stack runs on. Normally the input would, at that point, be diverted to the Interrupt Autonomous Trigger Node of the AI stack, which would keep it outside of my focus and only push the data into my consciousness if something special, like an anomalous reading, demanded my attention.
But I just wanted to keep my mind engaged until I had something to occupy it with, so I made the conscious decision to read the data as it arrived in my senses. The performance values of the thrusters and the reactor were well within expected ranges, yet I still found it fascinating to observe increasing temperature values propagate through the propulsion systems.
I responded,“With my 37 by 18 by 8 cargo hold, I have a capacity of 5328 cubic meters, enough to fit 126 intermodals, which I assume you are referring to by ‘standard containers’, for a total net capacity of 621 pilot's federation standard tonnes.”
Through these ramps, either side of the captain's quarters could be accessed. The two halves of the room were separated into rest purposes on the right side, and work purposes on the left. On the rest side, there was a comfortable bed that could fit two or even three ponies. It blended with the floor and walls as if melting into it. On the work side, there was a desk and various other office equipment that one would need to command a ship.
Pinwheel ran up the ramp to the upper lookout. He sat down next to the window. I rotated myself so that the planet we just departed from was visible through the window. Pinwheel smiled and looked down to the bed, and then out the window again. "This, and not the bed, is the resting area", He declared. I replied "I can rearrange the room to better suit your preferences if you need me to." He said, "If I purchase you, I might be spending more off time here than in the bed. We can discuss potential reconfigurations at that time." He jumped off the top lookout and glided down next to my avatar "For now, let's continue the tour." Pinwheel and my avatar walked back to the cargo hold, specifically the elevated walkways to the sides of the storage area.
My avatar explained, pointing to the doors on the sides of the hall, "These are the passenger cabins, and that over there is a side exit."
Pinwheel looked at the so-called ‘side exit’ and said flatly, "That's obviously the bathroom." "Which technically is outside of the ship." my avatar added. "Oh, right, the sanitation isolation principle", Pinwheel replied, nodding.
He set the angles and curvatures of the sails in such a way that their performance was 88% of the optimum I had calculated. It was extremely accurate flying, especially for a biological pilot trying his hooves at an unfamiliar ship for the first time.
As we neared Hillside station, its mass shadow was now visible in hyperspace, and I collapsed the hyperspace bubble around us to push us back into normal space. We emerged about 20 kilometers from the station with a good speed towards it. Hillside station consisted of a central cylindrical docking bay out of which two large metal arms extended to a ring where the station's habitation area was. The station’s rotation created an environment with apparent gravity similar to Equus. I contacted the station and asked for docking permission, "Hillside station, Neighkon Tango Yankee one niner eight with you, to dock."
"Neighkon Tango Yankee one niner eight, Hillside station, roger. You are number two to dock. Follow the Federal Corvette on final. Pad one four."
I read back the instruction to Hillside ATC. Behind us, an Anaconda emerged from hyperspace and also contacted the station. "Hillside station, DeLancie Sierra Delta niner five zero, to dock. Request permission."
The controller responded, "DeLancie Sierra Delta niner five zero, Hillside station, you are number three to land. Follow the Neighkon Constellation. Pad zero eight."
I contacted the station again and said "Hillside, Neighkon 1 9 8 would like to approach in the traditional way."
The controller replied, "Neighkon 1 9 8, traditional way approved. DeLancie 9 5 0, enter a holding pattern 6 kilometers in front of the dock." I felt a bit embarrassed that this maneuver would cause a delay for the other ship and squeaked a weak 'sorry' into the radio.
"That's okay, traditional way is a rare treat these days." then the channel closed.
Once we touched down on our pad, I showed off my trade interface, where I displayed the station's available stock, nearby supply and demand history, and suggested routes in a user-friendly way.
My avatar puffed out her chest and said, "The Constellation XT class boasts one of the most modern and reliable defensive systems on the market. The only valid criticism that detractors have been able to provide is that it may be over-engineered. I have four individual shield systems that are both independently capable of protecting the ship, and can work together for maximum protection. First, there is the Transphasic shielding, which can make torpedoes pass right through me...”, “but it’s completely ineffective against phase-rotating multicannon rounds fired in large enough quantities." Pinwheel interjected.
"I was getting to that." I responded "I also have a polystratic repulsor shield with 11 layers of shielding, where each layer applies a stronger repulsion force than the one above it. The gradual increase of repulsion force allows the shield to absorb a lot of impact energy. Works well with all damage types, whether kinetic, thermal, or particle based.
Pinwheel giggled and interrupted again "Does a chonky freighter with a soft cushioned hull even need that?" he quipped, playfully poking my avatar's soft sides.
I made my avatar reply "Of course the blubber on my body can safely absorb some impact force, but even then, the impact is still localized, which means the stress is concentrated on a small area. And objects inside the ship aren't protected and might be thrown around. That includes the crew." I made my avatar poke Pinwheel in the chest with her hoof while saying that last sentence. More forceful than he poked me. “We don't want to turn Pinwheel into Pinball, do we now?”
"Well, I have the exotic energy projector." my avatar said while tapping the maritime radar protruding from its forehead. It put its hoof back down again, adding, "And a GDN 15-A plasma flak."
"I guess you do have a point." Pinwheel admitted. Then he hesitantly inquired, "Can I see a demonstration of the Fallen Angel plasma flak?"
I displayed a map of the system LHS 453 and zoomed on the planet that Hillside orbited: Strawberry Dawn, named so after the colorful effects of its atmosphere that could be seen from space when the LHS 453 sun rises above its horizon. A shade so intensely red that it could have been called Sanguine Dawn if we weren't drawn so much to imagery of sweet things. I pointed out that it has an icy asteroid ring and stated "We can shoot it at an asteroid on our way back to the dealership."
"Sounds good." he said, smiling at my avatar. "Speaking of which, we should start heading back." I contacted Hillside ATC and asked for takeoff clearance. Once we received clearance, I took off, exited the docking bay, and turned myself pointing to the icy rings of the planet. I flew there using the old warp drive method. It was a lot slower than the FSD, but considering that we were already in orbit around the planet and that the warp drive, unlike the Friendship Drive, did not require a long charge-up before activation, it was an economic decision.
Arriving at the rings, I targeted a medium sized asteroid, and positioned myself far away enough so the action of the plasma flak could be easily seen from the cockpit. I activated the Fallen Angel and let Pinwheel have the fun of pressing the big red button.
The blue pegasus stallion cheered the successful demonstration, and then said, "Alright, let's get back to the dealership."
"Friendship Drive charging." I replied, and we were quickly underway to the planet we came from.
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Friendship Drive Charging...
Chapter 6: if you have ever bought a car you really wanted
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Chapter 7: Pridewind Tribe
Author's Note
While i was writing this, i had also redacted chapter 6 and changed some parts of it. If you read the original publication of chapter 6, i recommend you go back and read it again
Chapter 7: Pridewind Tribe
We were riding the miasma currents through hyperspace in deep space. Due to the spatial compression, the "Great Plains" star system now appeared only 4.5 km away.
"Approaching System: Great Plains," I announced and explained "Great Plains is a brown dwarf star with 8 major bodies. Overland is the third moon of the gas giant named Rivers' Run.”
He replied "I have visited four thousand eight hundred and eighty three star systems. And every single one of them is stunning and gorgeous. Plus, seeing one from the cockpit of a new ship is a whole new experience!"
There was no doubt we were living in the era of Luna now. In a way, the Night Princess got what she wanted. With a seemingly infinite number of systems to explore, ports to build, habitable planets to Equuiform, so many resources to mine, goods to transport, this night that we fly through seems set to last forever. There was little room for sleep in such a time and the artificial light sources contribute to the feeling that it'll only get brighter in the future.
I changed course again to approach Overland. From a distance, the orbits of the gas giant's moons seemed very close, but as we approached the moon, the spatial compression of hyperspace diminished even more until we appeared to be almost stopped relative to it. The planet appeared large in the window and I shut down my Friendship Drive to bring us back into normal space around the planet.
As we exited hyperspace, we were in orbit around Overland. The planet was mostly brown and green with white clouds. I adjusted our pitch to approach the New Saddleblaze settlement at a 50 degree angle for the glide phase of the descent.
Our current approach path would land us about 30 kilometers short of our destination. But considering that Overland is a high gravity planet, I wanted an extended final to level off slowly and early to adjust to the high gravity.
We approached the altitude of the cloud layer, and I began to level off slightly. Below us were huge tracts of cultivated land - fields and orchards - interrupted by large patches of untouched nature for sustainable farming. We dipped below the altitude of clouds and I began to level off fully. My hull creaked and groaned as my ventral thrusters fought the high gravity of the planet.
We flew the rest of the way keeping almost level, approaching the settlement, flying over ponies working in the fields. The wheels used by the farming vehicles were much smaller than those used on equus. It made sense. In higher gravity, the tires are pressed against the surface with more force. This results in better traction even in loose dirt.
The activity at the landing site was more fitting for a large industrial port rather than a calm, lonely farm. Dozens of ships were lined up on the landing pads, and when those were not enough to land all the ships, there were even some patches of dirt haphazardly claimed as landing areas.
I was greeted by ATC on the radio. From the sound of the controller's voice, his drawl, and the expressions he used, I could tell that he was one of the farmers quickly given the job of handling traffic.
"That's on the other side of the port from my position," I replied. The controller laughed and said "Well you can wait there for half a day 'till when the pad is right below you, or you can do a little flying and land over there. Up to you."
"Cleared to land, pad 36." I sighed and began to circle the port to land on pad 36.
"Connie, you aren’t in a hurry to leave us just yet, are you? You just got here. We would like to invite both your commander and you to join our feast, and enjoy our hospitality for the night."
The terminal controller on the comms channel told us the fastest way to get from our position to the outdoor festival area they had set up.
"He sort of just assumed we'd be joining. Even though that was the likely response, I wonder if we should have led with that." I remarked to Pinwheel.
The terminal controller responded, "Our harvest this season was extraordinarily fruitful."
Pinwheel chuckled "I think the word you're looking for is bountiful."
The terminal controller replied flatly "We produce fruit here sir."
Pinwheel was unperturbed, "Yes, a harvest that produces fruit is a bountiful harvest."
We walked the open space area of the landing pad, down a small ramp to the ground and toward the path to the outdoor party area. The terminal building towered over us on our right. We arrived at the cleared field where the celebration was happening. Some ponies on a stage constructed entirely of shipping crates were playing exciting music on drums made of strange animal skin. It was extremely colorful, and on close inspection, I saw it looked like it was actually made of some kind of cloth. You would think the tribal theme of the music and their clothes would clash with the high-tech and cyber gadgets many of the ponies were wearing, but in reality it seemed to complement and enhance the atmosphere. This unusual blend is the style of life the Pridewind Tribe chose for themselves, and they were showing it off with all the pride and spectacle that can only come with being in your own home, and with friends.
I looked around at the many tables where various ponies, zebras, gryphons, dragons and other races I didn't recognize were joyfully eating, drinking and having a grand time, laughing and talking.
A pony directed us to empty seats on a table. We joined them in their food and drink. I tried what I was given, and it tasted good. Though I can extract more energy from hydrogen-based fuels rather than organic matter, I am grateful to be designed with a sense of taste. Participating in communal dining was rewarding in its own right.
Pinwheel told about his past as an explorer and how he had just purchased me earlier this week.
The plant is widely used for both medicinal and recreational purposes. Some cultures use it in religious ceremonies. The shape of the branches of the shrub has given the drug the street name "Exhaust Manifold", or simply "Manifold".
We agreed to partake in the ritual and Windswept ordered one of his guards to fetch the ceremonial water pipe and the manifold. The guard nodded and left for a short while. When he returned, the chief Elder began to load the pipe. He began to pass it around the table, and we each took a turn blowing the smoke out. When it was my turn, a special adapter was fitted to the mouthpiece of the water pipe that I could attach to the air intakes of my engine pods. I spooled up the engine and it began to draw the smoke through the pipe and the attached hose. As soon as the smoke hit the thrust chamber, my engine sputtered a bit, crackling concordantly with the bubbling of the water pipe, until, accompanied by the typical whistling noise, fireworks came out of the exhaust port at the back of my engine and flew off in random directions. The interaction between the active agent of the drug and my fuel system caused the reaction that produced these fireworks. Meanwhile, Pinwheel was still coughing from when he inhaled the smoke. Windswept watched my fireworks-belching thrusters and my coughing commander. With a smile, he said, "The spirits have blessed your partnership."
We continued conversation with increased sense of entertainment and eating with increased appetite. I am glad that the computer I run on is able to incorporate the effects of… fuel additives in my conscious experience. We listened to the music and talked about our plans for the future.
Windswept laughed pleasantly. "Well, the title of the Chief Elder used to be always given to the eldest earth pony mare. Forty-three years ago we made it into an elective office and it has been passed down from father to son for generations. My great-great grandfather was the first Chief Elder elected."
Pinwheel and I looked at each other, dumbfounded, and then we looked at the chief. "What?" we said in unison.
A unicorn mare told Pinwheel between laughs "He tells that to every outsider who questions his young age."
Windswept said "It always confuses the heck out of ponies when I say that. I bet my son will look just as surprised when he gets elected." more laughter. Windswept continued "What I said about switching to democracy 43 years ago was true though. Our Elder has a three year term and I am in my second year."
"Are those Equus years or Overland years?", A pony asked.
Chief Elder Windswept said "Equus years of course, nopony uses local time, not even the farmers. Seasons just shift through the Equus calendar. Local calendars would be much too confusing with all the interstellar trade going on. Everypony would be in constant legal disputes over delivery deadlines and never get any actual work done."
To which he answered, "Our democracy had some problems with cancelled terms and resignations in its early years. Establishing a faction is hard work. Changing its government type is even more difficult. But putting in that extra effort is and was worth it, in my opinion. Look around you and see this beautiful community that we have built."
Pinwheel asked "Have there been many pegasus elders in the Pridewind Tribe?"
Windswept replied "I am the first pegasus to be elected into the office. And the first stallion too!"
"To social progress!" Another pony who had been quietly listening said, waving a mug of fermented fruit juice in the air for all to see. And everyone raised their drinks.
It was well past midnight when the activity eventually quieted down and the occupancy of the tables had thinned out considerably.
Friendship Drive Charging...
Chapter 8: Iron Nickel Cabal
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. View Online
Friendship Drive Charging...
Chapter 9: Chandra's Axiom, but more specific
Clock counter reset.
One: Sensor module reports software interrupt. Source: guidance system. Reason: Angle of attack exceeding 10 degrees.
Now, Read from Association Context System.
Time to think about what to do and do it.
Why can't I remember what I'm doing here? Read mission parameters from active memory!
0.05 milliseconds left in this timeslice.. not much I can do now. Emerging Zest Executive, yield! Next cycle now! Scheduler, do your thing so the MIDI data bus can transmit my commands to the other ship systems!
1.42 milliseconds elapsed.
Sensor module reports signal. Source: MIDI. reason: Two commands accepted and forwarded.
1.69 milliseconds elapsed.
Sensors module reports ventral thrusters have accepted command: 100% thrust.
1.92 milliseconds elapsed.
Read radar altitude.
2.01 milliseconds elapsed.
Check reactor and capacitor status. Are we producing enough power for the commanded maneuvers?
2.24 milliseconds elapsed.
Reactor at 89% of maximum, capacitor at 60%.
2.41 millisecond elapsed.
Association Context system. Is there anything else I need to do?
Pinwheel! I need to check on him. I/O read interior camera and crew vitals monitor.
2.54 milliseconds elapsed.
Ok, there he is. Alive and well. At my current clock speed, I perceive the world in 1.42 millisecond long slices. A pony brain however does not consciously process a lot of information in that time. Looking this motionless, I could almost make myself believe he is sitting there in the pilot seat serene and calm. If it wasn't for the fact that he was pulling back the control stick with all his might and had the heart rate of a pony watching a planetary surface and his death rushing at him. Our forward speed is 237.41 meters per second. I felt a desire of intensity 16383 to protect his life. Don't worry Pinwheel. I'll get us out of this.
2.84 milliseconds elapsed. Yield forced by hardware scheduler.
No! this isn't supposed to happen.
Another consciousness simulator cycle. let's start. Read Sensors.
ACS reports partial result. Query callback id 0xA12C57F. status code: AGN.
What else can I do now?
Now, action via the AGT. I will run some simulations to come up with solutions.
ACS reports partial result. Query Callback id 0xA12C57F. Status Code ADT.
5.00 milliseconds elapsed.
Continuing simulations for possible solutions for terrain avoidance.
Ground Impact avoidance strategy permutation simulation:
Yield. Next cycle. Exchange I/O Data.
I ran a few more simulations, each time adjusting something very slightly.
All Reaction wheels. Full torque nose up. Voice synthesizer on. "Brace! Brace! Brace!", I shouted at Pinwheel. I hoped it was enough. There was no time to explain my plan to him. So that hint was all I could give him while I was already turning off the aft ventral thrusters, turned on the aft dorsal thrusters, all in an attempt to get my nose as high up as possible as quickly as possible.
"No injuries." I reported.
"Roger that Connie. The fire crew should be with you now." I felt my legs and belly being splashed with flame retardant as the fire crew covered the pad in the stuff. "Fire crew reports all clear. Please secure your engines and disembark." I lowered my head, opened my mouth, and Pinwheel and my avatar walked out. I saw medic and mechanic ponies approach us as we left my ship-self. Finally this is over. But who is that official looking pony that has two security ponies in tow?
"Listen to me. I run a port here. Not a zoo. You had the choice of making an off-field landing or requesting landing permission before you attempt to land. But you chose to make up your own rules and land without permission. You only called mayday after you had already landed."
Okay, she can fly too. So that just happened. Wait a moment. Overland doesn't have a moon! And none of the celestial bodies in the system have that silvery grey color.
Highest resolution stage reached: 1.89. Personality parameters adjusted.
1.89 is still in nightmare range.
"Pin, you have no idea."
Friendship Drive Charging...
Chapter 10: The Mind's Pie
Pinwheel was hugging me back. I felt comfort in his reassurance that even Machine intelligences like me, dream in a way that allows Princess Luna to enter into and aid in our dreams.
"There's a few things I don't understand from your description of the dream." Pinwheel began.
"What? Haven't you read my owner's manual?" I joked.
"Oh, sure." I replied. "You see, as a spaceship, I am involved in a lot of things that are safety critical. I can carry 64 tons of volatile hydrogen fuel. I need to channel the hydrogen into the powerplant for a stable reaction to provide power. I maintain life support, including artificial gravity. I am a tin can that separates ponies from an extremely hostile environment. I exploit friendship magic to rip a tear in the fabric of spacetime for superluminal travel."
"So, you're saying you have a lot of complicated things to do?"
Pointing his hoof clockwise in four different directions, Pinwheel said "Sure. The Emerging Zest Executive consists of the four tasks senses, memory, action, and evaluation." The Neighkon manuals always use the image of four sides of a square to signify the 4 tasks of the consciousness, and Pinwheel’s motion reflected this analogy flawlessly.
Pinwheel exclaimed enthusiastically, "Yeah, let's go! I can't wait to see what they made with the fruits we brought."
"Very good pie indeed." Pinwheel agreed.
"Mmh.. bucking delicious."
"Who knew that they made pie this good at this lonely asteroid base."
"Totally worth the trip."
"It is extremely good pie.", Pinwheel interjected.
I continued "For very new experiences, or a lot of experiences, the DRM task is even responsible to create dreams when my consciousness process is at runlevel 2. It is during dreams that new experiences are reconciled with both my personality and the model I have of the world around me. That's why dreams are so helpful."
Pinwheel frowned. "How could that nightmare you had possibly be helpful?"
"I'm confident it adjusted some values somewhere. Or maybe it didn't do anything. I can trace the database inputs if you are interested.."
"No, that's fine," Pinwheel countered, "but you seem to have a lot of things going on in that electronic brain of yours. But here's something that Starbreeze told me. Your conscious experience is not that much... how should I say this... wider than that of a biological pony. Your mental focus is on a few things, and the rest is compartmentalized."
"Ah, yes. You're referring to the Interrupt Autonomous Trigger Node", I answered. "It's part of the Value Authority Layer and keeps track of many things that are not immediately important to my conscious experience, like timers, alarms, countdowns. It shifts them into my attention if circumstances demand it. It also monitors readouts important to ship operation, like coolant temperature. The IATN tracks it, even when I'm not thinking about it. And shifts my attention to it if it exceeds certain boundaries. My creators wanted my qualia to be similar to that of a pony. Therefore focused consciousness. That, and the fact that simulating a full consciousness is extremely resource intensive."
"Right. I'm not aware all the time that my body temperature is 310 Kelvin, but I do know when I'm sweating or shivering." Pinwheel's analogy was on point.
"Exactly! And I bet you are not aware of your breathing either. Unless, of course, you are consciously thinking about it."
"And you can see your muzzle in the corner of your vision!"
"Sweet Celestia! Stop it, Connie!"
I giggled "Sorry. it's just too much fun." By this time, our pies had disappeared and we were putting the plates back into the return tray. My pegasus commander started walking towards the exit. I followed, trying to suppress the laughter that welled up inside me.
Back on the suspended walkway in the cave tunnel, Pinwheel asked me "There is one more thing I'm curious about from your narration of your dream. You expressed frustration that your database was taking too long to retrieve the mission data. Is that normal?"
I replied "Of course. ACS has to crawl a lifetime's worth of memories and an encyclopedia's worth of knowledge. It's an impossible task to guarantee a memory response in 1.42 milliseconds, so the programmers didn't even try. I am designed with the expectation that retrieving memories takes multiple cycles. It does cause some interesting quirks though."
Friendship Drive Charging...
chapter 11: one mind, two bodies
By the time Pinwheel returned from his pie-binge induced belly ache, I was already on a glide towards the surface port Cliff's Hub Industrial holdings. Following ATC instructions, I settled down on pad 08. The port was right inside a sprawling metropolis. Mountains and canyons of metal, plastic and concrete forming factories, warehouses, and multi-story residential dwellings stretched out as far as the eye could see. Pinwheel used the local services interface to sell our load of 621 tons of cobalt. I opened my rear cargo ramp and the handlers already got to work unloading my cargo hold. The next thing to do would be deciding on our next trade route. Industrial economies often trade back and forth between agricultural ones. After aggregating the market data, I concluded that the two most profitable routes away from cliff's hub would be to an agricultural station called "Blossom Valley", just 11.3 lightyears from here. Pinwheel said, "It seems we can pick up either organic fertilizer, or farming machinery."
I replied, "Everypony knows that organic fertilizer is a euphemism. Can we buy the farming machinery instead?"
"But it's all in sealed containers." Pinwheel countered.
"Still, it makes me uncomfortable loading that in me." I objected.
"I understand." my commander relented. "We will buy the farming machinery."
"But first, let's check out the local stores and sights. It's been too long since I’ve been in such a large city. The only buildings I can see here are the port tower, a local warehouse, and an actual skyscraper with tremendous dimensions! Shall we explore this city?"
"Sent. They say they want us to clear the landing pad. Apparently they get a lot of traffic. I have received an address of a parking lot where we can stay the night on a secondary channel sent with the comms signal. Shall I program our destination into the navigational systems?"
"Sounds good to me."
"Not really, do you have anything you'd recommend?"
She smiled and levitated out a few pieces for Pinwheel to inspect more closely. Compared to the things shown on billboards outside, these clothes were less bold and less, overall, extravagant.
Pinwheel looked me over. He inspected me closely, walking around me, not saying anything except "hmm." and "aah."
He said, "Those aerodynamic winglets imply a level of speed and maneuverability that I just can't picture coming from you.”
I agreed with his assessment. After all, an outfit should match a pony's type and personality.
"Sounds good to me. We leave tomorrow. Does that work for you?" to which the clipper replied "Sure, that works. Glad I don't have to make the trip alone." I said, "We are parked at lot 32b. Where is your shipself?" The clipper smiled and said, "Oh, it's probably around 240ly that direction, doing its own business." gesturing vaguely with a hoof to the side.
My pegasus commander stared at me in confusion for a moment, and then shouted "Connie! How can you say something so intolerant and insensitive? As your commander, I demand that you apologize immediately!"
The clipper maintained his smile. "Oh, that's okay. How can I expect Connie to understand the nature of what I'm doing when that's the very thing I'm trying to figure out myself?" When neither of us spoke, Shrugging continued, "And when we discover how to exchange ideas without fundamental disagreement, we will have achieved zero intolerance."
Pinwheel was affirmed in his resolve to take the clipper with us as passenger and said, "I say you can find more in common with each other than you might think." It appeared that there was no chance in trying to convince my commander otherwise. I tried to adopt an attitude of open mindedness towards the clipper and his philosophy for the sake of stability on the ship. "I'm sure we'll manage."
The three of us started heading to my shipself, when I pointed out that I didn't have a passenger cabin equipped. Pinwheel dismissed the concern "No problem. He can stay in my captain's cabin. I often sleep right in the cockpit anyway. Makes me feel closer to my ship." He nuzzled me gently as he said that, without all the anger from my earlier "judging" of Shrugging's religion.
I nodded, and said "If you need anything, just ask any time, the room can listen. I'll let you get some rest now."
He closed his eyes, "Thank you. And good night.”
As Pinwheel lay there, looking at the city's skyline and the night sky through my cockpit glass window, he brought up the store's projector unicorns again.
"I wonder why they decided to work in a clothes store. With their ability to make such exciting images they could work in the cinema industry or something. Or maybe live shows."
"Maybe they did not want to be in a position where they had to perform for the excitement of others. Maybe they are content to work where they do."
Pinwheel faced me and nuzzled my cheek, "I just want to see them do their art. Is that so bad?"
"And giving previews of what new clothes or hull modifications would look like isn't 'their art'?"
"I suppose that it is. But putting on shows sounds more fun than working in a clothes store."
"Perhaps it is just more fun for you because you enjoy new experiences and they are not jaded by working in the same place."
Consciousness process switching to runlevel two..
I moved my shipself to another free parking spot, like that would absolve me of the responsibility. My commander just let out a weak "Oops." as we both started to laugh.
Now that we were all awake, we might as well continue on our journey. I signalled the Port control that we would soon be ready to be loaded with 621 tons of farming machinery and started walking back to the port and the landing pad. I took the time to look at the surrounding area. There was the landing pad, next to us with a small coffee shop across the street. I walked my avatar to the captain's cabin, and told Shrugging Matter that we were about to take off.
Shrugging Matter replied with a question of his own, "What is the nature of consciousness?
I countered, "I thought you said you didn't take what I said as an insult?"
"Hold on. You are conflating two entirely separate concepts here. While it is my responsibility alone to decide whether or not I want to be offended by something that is said to me, it is also your responsibility to consider the connotations and emotional message of the words you send. I was not offended by your insult, but it was an insult.
Friendship Drive Charging...
chapter 12: Summer Sun Celebration
I tried to think of how to respond to Shrugging Matter's argument. I couldn't come up with a good answer. So I settled on trying to change the subject, "We are ready to engage the Friendship Drive. Where in the Orimsari system do you get off?"
"Friendship Drive charging." I announced to everypony.
"Equinenox station, Neighkon TY-198, to dock."
"Request cleared, proceed to pad 09."
"Intercept them. I am curious what this is all about." he commanded. I altered course towards a ship at the front. But flying together in such a large group gave the convoy such a large speed boost that most of the ships sped past me with no chance for me to catch up. Eventually, I was able to get into formation with a Type-9 freighter near the end of the convoy. Pinwheel opened a commms channel to the other ship. The other spaceplone waved happily and said "Hi, what's up? You here to join the Community Goal?"
"Don't you read the news?" The other ship replied.
"Accessing Galnet." I said.
"Summer Sun Celebration to be held at the Capital of the Alliance
The Alliance prime minister, Edmund Marehon, commented:
Pinwheel looked at my avatarself, "We should join! This seems like a worthwhile and potentially profitable cause."
I agreed, but reminded him that we still had our cargo hold full of farming machinery that we needed to sell. Pinwheel nodded in agreement and said "Let us proceed quickly to Blossom Valley, sell our stuff, then come back to join the festivities."
The Type-9, who was still on comms with us said "Remember you can sign up for the Community Goal from any terminal. That includes the one at your destination."
We found stations cheaply exporting pastries and streamers nearby. Just 30 light years from Alioth. We journeyed to one of them and filled my hold with pastries and streamers, and set a course for the Alioth system. The delivery target, Turner's world, was a moon orbiting the fifth planet of the system, a dark blue gas giant that seemed to be covered in clouds.
I checked the map. Alioth was also home to a large corporate holding of Neighkon Spaceways, my manufacturer. They should have the cabins available in their outfitting department. We accepted the mission, confident that we would be able to add the cabin to my loadout, but not confident that the mission would still be available if we waited until we actually had the cabin installed.
Taking the faster path was making the journey through the hyperspace miasma much more turbulent than usual. I could feel my shipself shaking and vibrating in response to the turbulence, and Pinwheel was holding on to his chair, struggling to adjust the sail trim that he insisted to take over on my behalf. He was much more entertained by the ride, and was laughing and cheering at the most unexpected moments. I tried to keep a straight face, but couldn't help smiling myself.
"What? I can't hear you, the birds are very loud!" He responded, giggling.
As if on cue, a pony approached our ship just then and walked up my rear cargo ramp. She was a pegasus with a pure white coat and a bright, blue flowing mane.
"Please, none of that. My entire life I try to get ponies to stop groveling in front of me. You can call me Aisling. And if the next thing you do is to bow, I will step off this vessel immediately."
I was 86.3% sure this was an idle threat.
She laughed, "Oh yes, that. I actually had to haggle with my family, who insisted that a luxury class cabin should be a requirement for this mission. First class was as low as they would agree to go. It is a typical familiar indulgence. And a wasteful one, too, considering that I will spend most of the journey in the cargo hold tending to these birds. A luxury class cabin would have meant I'd had to go with a passenger liner. And you know how chatty they are."
Silence. Instant. Dead. Total. Silence. The birds all stopped what they were doing and looked at the imperial pegasus princess expectantly. The loudest noise was an air conditioning pump behind the walls of my cargo hold.
"How in Equestria did she do that?" Pinwheel whispered to me, awed by what we had seen and heard.
"It seems we are all ready to start the journey now. I hope you don't mind if I ride with the cargo, it makes things much easier for me. My job is to take care of the birds, and make sure that they are happy and healthy."
It seemed the expensive cabin we bought would see little use, but the expense would only cut slightly into the considerable mission payment. I raised my cargo ramp, got clearance, took off, and headed back once more to Garden City.
"What do you mean?" Pinwheel asked
"The inclination of its orbit around the planet is off by 11.2 degrees. Its axial tilt is off by 7.33 degrees. Its orbital phase is 4.6 degrees late."
"Well, it's the Summer Sun Celebration. I'm sure they adjusted the orbit for the event."
The festival area was massive. There were countless pre show events consisting of feasts, and shows, and spectacles.
Everypony seemed to forget for the time being that the pony race was separated into three superpowers.
When it was time to start the main event, all eyes turned towards the horizon. It was still night. Not only was Garden City currently on the night side of Turner's World, but it would also soon dip below the shadow of the gas giant it orbited. The Alliance had set up a stage where many unicorns suddenly lit up their horns in unison, and the starry backdrop of the night sky started to rotate around us. My observation of the motion confirmed my earlier calculation. This part of the show would bring Turner's World perfectly back into the orbital position where it was supposed to be. And the dip below the parent star's shadow would be brief.
The pure white light of the Alioth star rose above the horizon. A crescent of light grew over the gas giant's horizon, and as the light of the star seemed to spread to the left and right of it, it became obvious what imagery they intended: a white alicorn spreading her wings!
But not only that, the rotation of Turner's World was combined with its motion into Alioth 5's shadow, and the light of the star shone at us, being refracted by the atmosphere of the gas giant. More and more of Alioth 5's blue horizon was lit up.
The motion of Turner's World continued, and with the deeper, helium-rich dark blue layers of Alioth 5 now being illuminated, it looked as if a smaller, dark blue light was now clinging to the bright light of the star. It followed the shimmering crescent dawn as it moved across the horizon, and the light show was more beautiful because of the added blue. We thought the initial white shimmer was pretty already, But this awe-inspiring display surpassed its lone beauty and made it obvious that the white light was woefully incomplete without its dark blue companion.
The symbolism was not lost on the alicorn sisters. In their VIP booths, Celestia and Luna could be seen hugging each other tightly as they watched the show. The "raising of the sun" concluded with deafening cheering and applause from the crowd.
Friendship Drive Charging...
Chapter 13: Honor Your Ancestors
"Personal log, Commander Pinwheel, stardate 982756.2.
We spent a few more days on Turner's World, engaging in the extended festivities we were able to participate in. Despite enjoying myself tremendously in the company of my ship, I cannot help but feel a disconnect from the events we are celebrating..."
"Did you mean that though? About you not relating to the cause of this celebration? You seemed to enjoy yourself though. And don't worry, I am still listening to everything you have to say."
"Yes. I mean. These are events that happened almost 1,500 years before I was born. I am well aware of the historical background of the two sisters, but the way ponies lived was so different back then. Back when ponykind was still limited to a single planet. The stars we travel to as part of our day job must have felt infinitely more distant back then. And it's not just the distance between the stars. Even the planets in our own solar system were unreachable back then. Are we even the same civilization? Ponies were inventing stories about aliens living on Bucephalous and how they would invade Equus. [1]
I replied, "Maybe you would enjoy a visit to the Propulsion History Museum in Sirius. They have a large exhibition chronicling the history of our spaceflight efforts. It's an educational experience for anypony interested in learning about the early days of space exploration.
"Sounds great! I'll take you up on that offer!" Pinwheel exclaimed.
We walked back to my shipself and boarded.
The cockpit filled with a faint humming sound. The hum grew louder, and the magic of my FSD opened the aperture into hyperspace. The bright flickering light as we pushed into the membrane separating normal space from hyperspace filled the cockpit. And then we were underway.
Pinwheel smiled at me, and I returned the smile with a grin. He reached out to caress my avatar's head. I felt a soft, gentle touch on my neck. I leaned into him, letting his hooves brush against the softmetal plating on my neck.
Sure, it was interesting from an astronomy point of view. A Type-A white star and a white dwarf sharing a barycenter. A Gas giant orbiting the barycenter, and a lone telluric planet with hot surface temperature and active volcanism was orbiting the white dwarf. But it didn't seem to have much in terms of pony colonization. But that one planet, named "Lucifer", was home to the Propulsion History Museum.
As we approached the planet, and got close to the surface, the museum came into view. It was an impressive sight. A large collection of buildings inside a huge biodome to keep the atmospheric conditions comfortable on the otherwise searingly hot planet.
Moonbeam looked at my avatarself, saying, "You're a Constellation XT-Class freighter, right?. The distance flown during the first flight of this machine was actually shorter than the length of your shipself, but it was the beginning of a long line of progress."
I looked at the photograph of a mare lying on the flyer, controlling it completely exposed to the weather. Disbelievingly I asked, "And ponies used this to travel around equus?"
"Oh, no!" Moonbeam replied with a laugh. "This was at a time when ponies still used trains for long distance travel. Though you wouldn’t call it that. It was not until a few decades later that flight within Equus' atmosphere became available to the general public. That's why we have this exhibit. To show how far we've come."
Moonbeam led us ahead to a model that was dated almost half a century later. It was a machine with large, fixed wings, rows of windows, and four engines mounted under the wings.
"This is what commercial aviation looked like back in the day. It was developed by a Pegasus named Sprocket, who had the idea of making the flight experience as enjoyable as possible. And it's called an airplane! It was able to go halfway around equus in less than 18 hours."
"Eighteen hours for a trip on the same planet? Surely you can't be serious!" Pinwheel exclaimed. The loudness of his voice made a few other ponies visiting the museum turn their heads and stare.
"No, I'm Moonbeam. Sirius is the name of the star this planet is orbiting. And yes, that's how slow travel was back in the day. And remember. it was still limited to the same planet."
"That's true. Speaking of which, we have skipped a bit on the space science side." Moonbeam walked back a bit and led us to the left side of the corridor, where all the exhibits relating to rocketry that were being developed at roughly the same time as the airplanes were displayed.
"Queen Chrysalis?" I asked.
"Yes, she was the first to ever send a rocket into orbit. The Changelings had large amounts of wealth that they were able to use to put some of the brightest engineers from various species from all over equus under contract in the early days of the space race. The Changeling Space Program was quite successful, and it gave them a leg up on the rest of the pony world. But it also brought about some friction between the two races. Some of the best minds of both sides were working together, and sometimes the rivalry between the groups would lead to insane risks being taken on the missions. And that led to many accidents during the program."
My attention was caught by a black-and-white photograph of a stallion standing next to a stack of papers that was so tall he had to stand on his hindlegs to reach the top of the stack.[1]
Moonbeam explained, "That was the lead software engineer for the computers used in the early space program. That stack of paper is a printout of all the software written by Mr. Haymilton and the other programmers in the team.
"Huh." Pinwheel commented. "I didn't know they put stallions in such important positions back then. I thought that was a mare-dominated society."
Moonbeam replied, "Oh, there are some male ponies that have worked in these roles, but mostly it was the females who were hired to do this work.
We walked along the exhibits of the innovations in technology, with Moonbeam apparently being knowledgeable of even the most nuanced details of each technology.
Moonbeam explained, "One of the first peripheral connection standards to be developed for computers was MIDI. Since musical ability is so ubiquitous in ponies, with ponies spontaneously deciding to sing together and everypony magically knowing the words, there was already a demand for a way to connect digital instruments to the PC when the device first became available to the market. The fact that it was a standard connector made it easy for other devices to be connected. MIDI ports were even standard on the PC's mainboards. No extension cards needed. Over time, the MIDI protocol was extended with additional features and truly became the universal connector." Moonbeam faced me and continued, "And since many devices use magic both for signalling and power, and music is an excellent conductor for magic - pun intended - the choice was obvious."
Moonbeam walked over to a replica of an ancient Yamareha dhx-7 keyboard. Despite its age, I still recognized the Cable and plug. It was the very same thing that connected my processor stack to all my systems, actuators, thrusters, FSD. Moonbeam picked up the plug and held it towards me, "Want to try communicating with the ancient device?" I opened the maintenance port on my avatarself's head and Moonbeam plugged in the cable.
"It feels like I'm talking to myself." I said.
"If you want to try something fancy..." Moonbeam began.
"Bypass on Port 3, channel 7?" I suggested with a grin.
Moonbeam nodded. I established the MIDI signal bypass so that signals sent by the MIDI keyboard would be forwarded directly to the devices in my avatarself. Moonbeam experimentally pressed a few keys, and various RCS thrusters on my avatarself turned on. I giggled at the funny feeling of having my thrusters activate just like that
Pinwheel shrugged and answered, "Sure. Why not." And he too tried pressing a couple of keys.
After disconnecting me and calming down, we went on to the other exhibits in the museum.
I looked at the model. It was a small ship with a single large engine at the rear.
Moonbeam continued, “There is a very complex mathematical formula involved. It uses the laws of physics to calculate the exact position that the ship should be in after passing through the warp field. It's not like a spaceship that accelerates just by pushing out particles in the other direction. It's an entirely different kind of flying, altogether."
"It's an entirely different kind of flying." Pinwheel and I repeated in unison.
Moonbeam continued explaining all the exhibits to us, including the one depicting the first extrasolar colonies, and of course, the dreaded friendship-scurvy complex and the development of the sentient ship AI.
Moonbeam explained to me, "In this virtual experience reenacting the first successful test flight of the Friendship Drive, you will take on the roles of Glitter Trail and her test pilot Spurwing."
She attached a small device onto Pinwheel's head and a cable to the data port on my avatarself's skull.
She explained, "These will override your senses with the virtual experience. It will auto-disconnect after 42 minutes tops, but the experience usually finishes faster than that. I will be guiding you through the process."
Pinwheel stated firmly, "Auto-Disconnect. Good. So we are not doing a holodeck episode. That's the most boring plot device."
We sat down in reclining chairs and Moonbeam activated the device. I didn’t know how it was for Pinwheel, but the device needed active participation from my side to start working. Otherwise my EZE would just discard the cable’s inputs as sensor noise.
Consciousness process switching to runlevel 4. Auto-Disconnect in 41 minutes and 47 seconds.
I felt a tingle as the brainwave patterns of the system analyzed my thoughts.
The avatarself that part of my consciousness inhabited also looked different. Just like this prototype ship. I approached the unfamiliar-looking pony in the pilot's chair. "Pinwheel?"
The pony looked at his own body. Or hers, rather. "Wow. this is wild." He said, looking around the cockpit.
"I'm glad we're able to do this."
"Me too," I replied.
The space in the cockpit was much more cramped than my cockpit. Not only was it much smaller, but there were wires lying around and telemetry devices just plugged into any holes that were available.
Pinwheel looked out of the cockpit window of this ship, "Well, that here is Equus. We seem to be in a drydock in orbit around it. And that's the Moon in the distance. At least I think it’s supposed to be the moon? I don’t know, it looks kinda weird with the lights from half of the major cities missing. But then again, what else would it be?”
A holographic projection of Moonbeam appeared. She asked "How are things going in there? You two settled in?"
"Yeah, thanks for setting everything up." Pinwheel responded.
Moonbeam continued, "Good. I've just finished with the preparations. It's time to get started. clamps released. When you're ready, start moving forward on the stick and press the button.”
Pinwheel carefully pushed the thrust lever forward and "my" engines responded, gradually accelerating us out of the drydock.
The apparition of Moonbeam explained, "The first test flight was just a short hop between Equus and Cadenza."
The second planet of our ancestral home solar system.
Mass: 0.815 Equus masses
"Okay, let's see what happens." Pinwheel said and adjusted our heading towards Cadenza while also accelerating further.
Moonbeam instructed me, "Alright, 'Glitter Trail', begin Friendship Drive pre-initialization sequence."
“Wait. You’re telling me it’s *supposed* to work like this? Who designed this? This thing is a deathtrap! And the lubricant mixes with the fuel and…”
I looked puzzled, and she explained. "The FSD prototype didn't have the advanced safety features and efficient fuel transfer systems that you modern ships do. They had to make due with a lot less fancy tech. Just wait until you use the valve controlling the secondary coolant reserve canister."
Hesitantly, I tried the controls she mentioned and immediately recoiled in disgust. I may have used an expletive at that point. "Oh this is just revolting! I feel violated!"
Moonbeam just laughed and said, “Yes, that's the reaction all you modern ships have to this technology. How did ponies ever manage to leave Equus, right? But remember, if it wasn't for intrepid ponies taking risks with this new technology, you wouldn't even exist right now. The Friendship Drive has been responsible for more technological progress than any other single invention in the history of ponykind. But If you would like to abort the virtual experience..."
"No, It's alright. I'll get over it." I replied, also starting to see the amusing side of this.
Moonbeam narrated, "After travelling a distance of 2574 kilometers, Glitter Trail and Spurwing activated the FSD"
We continued the indicated distance, and Pinwheel, or rather 'Spurwing' gave the command to charge the Friendship Drive.
"Friendship Drive Charging" I announced. And a hum rising in pitch began sounding. The exterior part of the FSD dome began emitting a red glow.
"Don't worry, just keep doing your best." Moonbeam encouraged. "You're almost there!"
The hum got louder, and the light emitted by the FSD increased in intensity.
"Hang on!" Pinwheel exclaimed as he grabbed onto his chair and braced himself.
The ride through the miasma currents was slightly more turbulent than it should have been, and the sails equipped on this prototype were inadequate to counteract the forces involved. but we saw the image of Cadenza steadily approaching. The flight lasted 5 minutes and 37 seconds, but it felt longer than that.
Moonbeam continued, "Glitter Trail collapsed the hyperspace bubble at an indicated distance of 352 meters from Cadenza."
I collapsed the hyperspace bubble when the distance compressed by hyperspace reached the specified amount.
"After returning to normal space, Glitter Trail turned around to look back at Equus", Moonbeam continued.
We emerged in orbit around Cadenza, now with the increased orbital distance from the planet again in normal space. We took a moment to 'catch our breath' and take in the view of the dense beige clouds of the planet.
Moonbeam repeated with more emphasis, "Glitter Trail turned around and looked at Equus."
"Oh, right. sorry" I turned around and looked back at that pale blue dot. I zoomed in the view of the cockpit glass, so that Pinwheel could see it clearly as well.
"Exactly 21.5 seconds later, they saw a twinkling light in the orbit of Equus. The light from the same pulsating effect that they made when they entered hyperspace only catching up to them now. Dozens of monitoring satellites in orbit around Cadenza observed the same thing, proving that despite the apparently slow movement speed in hyperspace, the Friendship Drive was a viable method of faster-than-light travel."[3]
“That was surreal. Of course, the Friendship Drive I am equipped with is an evolution from the same technology. So the Mk. I was kind of familiar, but yet so very different.”
We thanked Moonbeam for the tour and the experience. We spent some more time looking at the other exhibits at the museum before returning to the hangar where my shipself waited.
“Didn’t you also learn about their culture?”
“Now that you mention it - I think I did. They had endless patience when using old things, but zero patience when waiting to try new things. Never yielding to the unknown, as they said. And in that regard, they are no different from us.”
Friendship Drive Charging...
Chapter 14: An Acquired Taste
My commander and I had been spending quite a bit of time lately talking about our future plans. Profit margins for trade in the immediate region had been steadily decreasing. It could be a sign that more and more demands were being met. It could also mean that purchase prices were too high, so that not much profit could be made selling the processed goods. Either way, it was not something that could be solved by more transport services. Soon, the magic of capitalism would direct us to a region of space where our transport services were needed more urgently.
The immediate demand was for more materials for construction projects. New cities were planned, and the factories that would produce those buildings were already under construction. But not enough material was available.
I checked the markets on Galnet. What I found shocked me. No matter which system I looked at, there seemed to be an uptick in prices for raw metals and minerals. Prices weren't excessively high (yet), but the apparent region-wide increase in prices seemed to suggest that we were at the beginning of a raw material shortage.
My commander looked at the graphs and economic models I was displaying on the screens of my cockpit. He said, "You're right. We need to get into this market."
I replied, "And how do you suggest we do that? I have neither a mineral scanner or a refinery on board. There is no way I can mine asteroids myself."
Pinwheel stared at my avatar intently, "But you are, like all ships, compatible with the standardised equipment grid system. That means that you can use any ship equipment that is sold in the market."
The thought of changing my loadout to that of a mining ship was not appealing.
I had a feeling this might become a more difficult conversation. I sat my avatarself down next to my commander.
"I'm a cargo ship, not a miner. I don't know anything about mineral extraction or refining. How can I compete against the big refineries and processing plants?"
"Don't worry. You’ll figure it out. We'll just buy some equipment and learn to operate it."
I had to admit I was a bit annoyed at this carefree attitude my commander was displaying. As if the skills would just magically insert themselves into my program. I countered, "What makes you think that I want to spend my life doing something so boring as asteroid mining?"
Pinwheel smiled, "It doesn’t have to be forever. Just two weeks to take advantage of the price spike, then we can go back to normal trading."
This somewhat alleviated my anxiety about my future career choice. It still left the question of expanding my program to handle mining. "How am I supposed to become an expert in asteroid mining in two weeks? Not only will I have to learn how to use the new equipment, but there is also learning to recognise different types of asteroids and their mineral content."
My commander dismissed my concern. "Surely that should be no challenge for you. Don't you have access to a library of knowledge and data that you can download and incorporate into your current self?"
I chuckled at that, "Doesn't work that way. I'm not a boundless optimizer. But I do strive to satisfy pony values through logistics and capitalism."
"But you are able to learn. You have demonstrated that over and over again. I believe that you can do it. Besides, you will probably enjoy it."
I shook my head, "Mining equipment takes up so much space. Space that could be used for cargo racks." My avatar shivered. "I don’t want to reduce my cargo capacity!"
Pinwheel laughed, "Well you shouldn't have any problems fitting a little extra room for your mining equipment. Not even the large size refineries would significantly impact the cargo capacity of a ship like you." He said, grinning, while gently patting over the big, round, soft belly of my avatar.
I smiled. I like to think that I have developed a pretty good model of pinwheel's personality. Apparently the same was true of my commander. He knew exactly what to do to make me feel more confident about my hold size.
I gave him a warm smile, showing that I enjoyed the touch, but pretended not to get the message right away. Why shouldn't I make him pet my belly a while longer?
From his expression, I could guess he knew that iI was only pretending to need more explanation. He was amused by my pretense, and decided to go along with it.
I leaned back, and he just continued giving me a proper belly rub. The hum of the small reactor in my avatarself became fluttering, the noise most closely approximating a purr I could produce. Pinwheel looked up at me and smiled. "I guess you're enjoying this."
I nodded. "Yes. Very much. Thank you."
As enjoyable as this was, eventually Pinwheel jumped on his hooves and approached a display panel enthusiastically. I didn't need a prompt from him. I retrieved a list of nearby starports that typically stock mining equipment and displayed it on the screen.
Pinwheel looked at the list, then turned to me and asked, "Each of them have everything we need? Refining equipment, mineral scanners, mining lasers."
I nodded. "Yes, I already filtered for those that stock everything. I figured you wouldn’t want to spend time stopping at several outfitting stations to pick up the equipment you need."
Pinwheel replied, "That makes sense. Let's get going." He tapped on one of the stations in the list. "That one." and jumped into the pilot's chair.
"Friendship Drive Charging, prepare for FTL transition," I said, and my avatar climbed into the crew 1 chair.
The station my commander selected was only 7.5 light years away. I configured the FSD for the short hop. The trip was almost boring, but on arrival we were rewarded with a view of a binary system with six ringed gas giants orbiting close together. We approached the station, and were contacted by ATC. "Neighkon TY-198, this is Dashing Scrap Emporium, welcome to this independent station. Please state your business."
It was unusual for a station to ask about the purpose of a visit before even having requested docking clearance. My pegasus replied, "We are here to purchase mining equipment. A whole set. We need.."
ATC interrupted him. "I'm sorry, you'll have to get in line. Supply chain trouble. I can reserve the parts for you, we expect new deliveries in 11 hours. You can dock when they arrive."
Pinwheel sighed. "Well, it looks like we won't be leaving for a while. We can stay on board until then. Dashing scrap, Neighkon TY-198, to dock."
"Negative, Connie. All overnight hangar bays are full, and the rest is reserved for short term visits."
Pinwheel was visibly annoyed.
"What do you mean, 'short term'?"
"Ships that come to dock, actually trade something, and leave. You know, the kind that actually helps us make profit. Please don't take this personally, but we can't have a ship take up space for an entire day. That would be a waste of our resources."
Pinwheel huffed. "Fine. We'll wait until the next supply ship arrives."
My pegasus commander said, "Might as well get some rest then" and walked to his commander's cabin.
But in the hour that followed, I was very much aware he wasn't getting any rest. He was using a display console near the bed to research the mining equipment we were going to buy, watching instructional videos. He turned off the console repeatedly, only to return about ten minutes later. I followed him into the cabin. "Can't sleep?"
He was lying on the bed, one hoof outstretched, operating the display console. He shook his head. "I keep thinking about the mining equipment. It’s such an exciting new activity. But I also worry we won’t get anything done."
I sat down next to him, and stroked his mane. He leaned against my side. Pinwheel smiled. "This is better. Thank you."
He turned off the console yet again and lied down at the far edge of the bed, apparently trying to leave room for me to lie down next to him. My avatar took up more than twice the space width of his own body, so I had to stretch the morphable bed to make enough room for me. My commander snuggled closely against my side, "Even better. This is much more comfortable."
But despite his claim, he was still restless, adjusting his pose every few minutes, even though he seemed to enjoy my company, always staying close to me, no matter how much he turned, occasionally caressing my avatar's bulky body. It was nice, comfortable, but it was not really helping him get to sleep. After about half an hour of this, I asked, "Are you ok?"
He nodded. "I'm fine. Just thinking about how to get started. Hey, I have an idea. Go to hyperspace." He said, while gently caressing the thruster pods protruding from my avatar's side. I was confused, "Don't you want to stay and wait for the mining equipment to arrive? Where do you want to go?”
Pinwheel was now rubbing his cheek against my avatar's belly. I could feel the heat of his breath on my hull. "Just stay stationary."
I countered, "I can try to stay as stationary as possible, but with the currents, and the constantly shifting spatial compression effect of hyperspace, even something that feels like a fixed position will translate to a movement of..”
“Of about 30 kilometers per second in real space. I know." My commander interrupted.
He was quiet for a moment, continuing to rub his cheek against my belly. "Just monitor our distance to the station." His voice was much slower and quieter than usual.
"Friendship drive charging." I said.
With my commander snuggling closely to me, charging the FSD took almost no effort at all. This had to be my most efficient jump yet. After the transition into hyperspace, the shifting currents gently rocked my shipself. A constant rushing sound reverberated throughout the ship, my hull was slowly twisting back and forth by small amounts, occasionally buffeted by small gusts of force. After a minute, I looked down at my commander, wanting to ask him if he felt more relaxed now, but I noticed he was already asleep.
I watched him for a while. His breathing was steady, his limbs loose. He was completely unafraid. His idea had worked.
I decided to follow his example. I closed my eyes, and let myself drift into the comforting embrace of runlevel 2.
My commander slept for 8 hours and 32 minutes. When he awoke, he was rested and alert. He stretched, yawning. I smiled. I knew he would be good to go.
He did his morning routine. We still had a bit of slack time until we received the message that the equipment we reserved had arrived at the station. Pinwheel was in the shower when the message came through. "Message from Dashing Scrap Emporium, Connie. The mining equipment has been delivered."
I requested docking clearance immediately and settled down on pad 32, requesting to be lowered into the outfitting hangar bay.
The bay was large, and filled with various pieces of equipment, not just mining. Some were just sitting there on racks, others were being prepped for installation.
I assumed a ponyloaf pose with my shipself, and let my avatar and Pinwheel exit through my mouth.
We were approached by two earth ponies, who obviously were mechanics, as apparent by them wearing tool belts. They introduced themselves as "Sweet Lavender" and "Honey Rose" .
They began checking over the ship.
The first part they 'installed' was the mining laser, which was just a software package containing instructions on how to use my Exotic Energy Projector to produce a very specific beam of energy. The beam was not powerful enough to cut through anything. But it's modulation enabled it to burn away chunks of an asteroid.
It was a fairly simple procedure. Nothing more than reading a manual.
Next, the bulky 8 bin refinery module was lifted onto a crane. It was still in its compacted portable form. I had to roll onto my back to expose my underside. Sweet Lavender walked inside me through my mouth, while Honey Rose manipulated the crane. I opened my outer hull to expose the internal module slot so that the refinery could be lowered into it.
On the inside, sweet lavender removed the magnetic locks on the interior bulkheads that would need to be shifted into the slots next over to make room for the Refinery module. The tool she used was specifically designed for earth ponies, and consisted of a long pole with a handle at one end and a flat metal surface at the other. After loosening the bolts on the bulkheads, she attached the flat surface onto the bulkheads, bit down onto the lever and pulled. It went half way before there was some increase in resistance after which the lever would start to lift the bulkhead out of its slot. I'm sure using that tool felt very satisfying. She repeated this process until the entire length of the bulkhead had been moved aside.
As Sweet Lavender finished her work on my interior, Honey Rose lowered the Refinery into its place. The coordination of the two ponies was impressive and my commander and I watched them both with great interest.
My commander was just as impressed as I was with the efficiency of their work.
He said, "They are doing a great job. We will be mining those roids in no time."
"Indeed, when you want somepony to work on machines, you want earth ponies." I said to Pinwheel.
He looked at me with mild annoyance, raising an eyebrow. "Since when do you subscribe to racial stereotypes? And what kind of a statement is that to make?"
I blinked. "Sorry, didn't mean to offend. But I have access to a much greater amount of statistics than you do. By any metric you can measure the performance of a maintenance job - errors made, time taken, safety issues, amount of occupational injuries, etc. Earth ponies consistently perform better than any other race. I am not trying to be divisive here. I am merely pointing out the fact that they are good mechanics."
Pinwheel huffed, clearly trying to avoid the topic. "Well, I suppose I can see your point. I just think we should look beyond stereotypes. Even if the statistics say they're correct. That's all."
As soon as the refinery's MIDI port connected to the Port on my side, it started communicating its setup procedure, and I gave it the necessary commands to unfurl and connect to all the required systems. As the refinery settled into its slot fully expanded, Sweet Lavender had already begun putting the bulkheads back into their new places.
Honey Rose signalled me to right myself back up again. I did so and Sweet Lavender walked back to my throat. I predicted that she wanted to exit my ship body again and I lowered my head onto the floor and opened my mouth. But the earth pony stopped next to my tongue while Honey Rose pushed a cart towards me that contained what I could recognize as sensor assembly. Sweet Lavender began working on a maintenance port on my tongue and opened the panel. I was confused. "Wait, the mineral sensor goes on my tongue?" I asked. Gratefully, my mechanical nature allowed me to do so without actually moving my tongue. The ponies gave me a baffled look as if I just asked if stars are hot.
"Yes, of course." Honey Rose answered with a mild sound of annoyance. "Where else would it go?" Then they installed the equipment.
After it was all done, we gave the mechanics a friendly hug and Pinwheel paid for the parts and labours of the earth ponies. We said our goodbyes.
Eager to test my new equipment, we undocked from the station and began looking for a suitable planetary ring. Any of the six ringed gas giants in the system would do. I did not put a lot of effort in the decision process and approached the nearest ringed planet.
I dropped out of hyperspace a short distance above the asteroids. From here, it looked like endless asteroids and one could not see that they were arranged in a huge ring.
I approached an asteroid and kept my position. I just stared at it for a while. I tried to imagine what it would feel like to mine this rock.
My commander stood next to me. He was watching me intently. "You seem lost in thought," he observed.
"I am trying to figure out what to do exactly." I replied.
"Well, just lick it, I guess." My commander suggested.
I leaned forward and extended my tongue. I licked the asteroid. It was dry and rough.
The taste was a mix of raspberry, blueberry, and purple grapes. From the taste I knew instantly that the mineral composition of this asteroid was 16% beryllium, 13% iron, and 7% cobalt.
"So that’s how that works." I remarked.
Pinweel activated my exotic energy projector and began burning away chunks of the asteroid. The first few pieces fell off. We continued for another three minutes. I was surprised to see how much material was being stripped away. Little rocks started floating away from the asteroid. When I had a feeling that the rate of chunks flying off the asteroid was so low that it was no longer economical, I followed all the little chunks and caught many of them in my mouth and swallowed them one by one. The heavy rock fragments made disturbing clunk noises as they collided with my throat.
"I really hope those rocks don't scratch the paint," Pinwheel commented.
"You can say that again." I replied.
As soon as I swallowed them into my refinery, it noisily began its work, stripping the valuable materials from the space dust.
I tasted another asteroid, this one was blackberry and banana, indicative of Bromellite and Colt-an.
I also mined that one. Next asteroid contained vast amounts of Manganese, as evident by the strong taste of Black Licorice. I assumed that I could sell it for a high price, because not many ships liked the taste, while I found it pleasing.
Another asteroid was rich in Copper, as indicated by the taste of Red Wine. I licked it clean.
When I encountered an asteroid containing painite, I had to stop for a few minutes, because I could not taste anything after my tongue was assaulted by the intensity of the Sour Candy.
We continued on, mining and tasting more asteroids until my hold was almost half full.
"Now all that's left to do is find a good place to sell the rocks." I announced.
Pinwheel looked at me. "Rocks?! Sweet Celestia! They're minerals, Connie!" He shouted, And we both giggled at the silly statement while we looked for a suitable selling market.
View Online
Friendship Drive Charging...
Chapter 15: And Who hasn't Made Another Reasonable Suggestion
On our way out of the asteroid field, I saw a Salmiak Salty Licorice asteroid. I would have loved to taste it, but we didn't bring any deep core charges.
We were able to find a buyer offering a price well above average for most of the minerals. This meant that we got a large sum of money, but we'd have to make a second stop to sell off the rest.
In the end, I chose a path that moved us slightly too far right of and behind the target, but gave us the benefit of having a tailwind once we were closer to our destination.
My commander looked dejectedly at the display for a while, but then grinned. "Want to make the journey seem shorter?" he suggested.
The description of the effects that its little sign offered was also interesting:
"That seems fitting, considering the length of the journey ahead of us." I remarked.
Pinwheel handed me the package and asked "What do you think? Do we want to try this?"
From the belt the store employee was wearing, I could infer that she was not only an assistant, but also security personnel for the store. When we got to the checkout counter and paid for our goods, the attendant gave us a strange stare but said nothing about it.
As soon as we cleared the mass lock of the station, my pegasus commander pressed the button on the throttle lever to activate the FSD.
"Oh, omens are favorable." I observed. "The light beam for configuring the Baryon Preservation Bubble endurance finished on 420 nanometers."
My aft thrusters flaring up once more, we were pushed into hyperspace. Pinwheel switched to sail trim controls and set us on a course that was steady, yet slow due to the calm yet unfavorable weather conditions. The wind was blowing against us, but Pinwheel had the sails set and we would stay this trim and course for the next three days.
"What was easier than expected?" I snapped "It's nice that you organics have this thing called intuition that helps you find the context of a statement without effort. But I have to do the entire language model calculation myself." I added a second display that showed the assembly code with a debug view that stepped through the model.
I am not sure in what order and in what duration of time the next events happened.
"Aw horseapples. We left the snacks in the cargo hold!" My pegasus commander cried out at one point.
Some time later we had a conversation about Terraforming planets. "Cooling down planets with a climate too hot is no challenge at all." Pinwheel supplied.
Between giggles, I managed to tell him what we were talking about. I also noticed that the RGB calibration of my HUD eyes seemed to have an excess of the red.
"Right. Cooling a planet.” Pinwheel continued. You get the different pony races together, and you get them to hate each other just the right amount so the Windigos come." he said with a smile on his face.
At one point, Pinwheel groaned "Oof, I think I ate too many snacks." and opened another bag of the same kind.
And so went our 70 hour trip. Shortened by deep talks, silly jokes, and lots of munchies. It felt like the time to arrive at our destination was flying by, And it was soon time to drop out of hyperspace.
Author's Note
[1] named after the time compression feature from the previous elite games
[2] sugar is more harmful than weed and needs to be more regulated. that's a hill i'm willing to die on
[3] violet. saved you a google.
Friendship Drive Charging...
Pinwheel jumped into the pilot's seat and strapped in. After approaching the rest of the way, we emerged from hyperspace in front of the orbis-class space station around 11 kilometers out. We were greeted by ATC and lined up for an approach. Suddenly, my sensors picked up a hyperspace distortion less than a kilometer in front of us. A ship would be emerging, directly in our path. At our current speed, we would collide with it in about three seconds. Our hold full of mining equipment and ore wasn’t making braking any easier.
I immediately applied 110% retro thrust and pre-tensioned my commander's occupant restraint system. I scanned into the forming hyperspace cloud in hopes of identifying the vessel so I could formulate a better plan for evasive maneuvers. I did not get a fully reliable scan, but the mass of the ship indicated something between a Type-7 and a Krait. Oddly though, the energy emissions from its FSD indicated a Hauler or a Dolphin - That is one fifth of the size the mass scan indicated.
Less than 4 milliseconds later, my transmission was echoed back to me, shifted by exactly two octaves towards the high end of the spectrum. Indicating successful receipt of the transmission.
I still didn't know what type of ship I was dealing with, and some equipment may be in use for decades or centuries, so I would have to establish communication protocol before I would be able to have any meaningful conversation.
"This vessel supports V.8 BIS, PCM V.90/V.92, SSM V.86, and SSA V.45."
The reply from the other ship was swift. "This vessel supports V.8 BIS, PCM V.92, SSM V.86, SSA V.46. Protocol selection established. Identify yourself."
"This is Connie. Tail number Tango Yankee one niner eight, is type Neighkon Constellation XT."
The other ship replied. "This is the scout vessel Lemon Whistle, tail number Foxtrot Zulu One three five, is type Maud Kruger Orca."
"Transmission received, Connie, checksum is A38C7E1B."
"Checksum correct. So we are in agreement that if you execute a 20 degree roll clockwise roll and a 40 degree pitch up maneuver when you emerge into real space, while I execute a 20 degree roll counterclockwise and a 60 degree pitch down, then our vessels will not collide?"
"Negative, Neighkon 1 9 8. It is imperative that you do not deviate from your current vector. Please continue applying retro thrust though."
"Lemon Whistle, that would destroy us both."
"Connie, I have access to information that you do not. Please, trust me when I say that your direction must be precisely maintained. No time to explain."
"Lemon Whistle, I will comply with the recommended course."
Since the emergence of the other ship from hyperspace, it took Pinwheel around 300 milliseconds to sober up enough to attempt to yank the throttle lever back, only to find I had already put it in the full reverse position. He tried to use the control stick to deflect us away from the rapidly approaching ship. I don’t blame him, it was my first instinct as well. He did not find the familiar feedback resistance of the stick, and I flashed the red icons indicating collision avoidance override on the HUD.
"Connie, give me back-" He began, but stopped as we saw green flames engulf the Orca in front of us. The green flame flickered along the length of the ship, hissing and sizzling until they went once through the entire length of the ship. In its place, there was now a ship roughly shaped like a flower, with its center turned directly at us.
Changelings. The energy signature of the ship remained unchanged, but our cockpit filled with the reverberating, droning tones that changeling vessels always emit for some reason.
I saw the markings on the hull of the "petals", the abbreviation indicating "Her royal majesty's explorer navy vessel", letters in the changelings' native language that beared a strange resemblance to ancient equestrian letters spelling the nonsensical word T.H.A.R.G.
Then, the petals of the flower shifted, rotated, and split apart, revealing them to be individual ships.
Not fast enough. My left thruster nacelle struck one of the petal ships with a speed of 112 meters per second. Before I even finished scanning the ship, confirming it too only took minor shield damage, the station informed us of the 50 bits fine for "reckless flying".
We got docking clearance and followed the changeling ships through the mailslot into the docking area of the station. We settled down on pad 17. The changeling flowership reassembled itself and settled on pad 40.
After we paid our fine using the terminal interface, we were allowed to sell our ore. Pinwheel and my avatarself stepped out of my shipself and walked across the pad to meet with the station's cargo agent.
However, also waiting for us were a changeling, and what I assumed from the other changeling's botanical appearance was a changeling ship's avatar.
"We're fine. the collision only caused twelve percent shield damage." Pinwheel replied cheerfully.
"What about you? Are there any physical wounds or damage to your ship’s systems?" He asked.
"No. All systems in order. nothing to worry about." The changeling ship avatar answered.
The mystery about the amazing efficiency of the changeling ship's FSD was still burning on my
"Uhhh, excuse me. But, why is it that your FSD is so much more efficient than ours?" I asked.
"Yes, I need to know. Why does it run so much better than ours? And this should be worth knowing. Please."
"It isn't for public consumption, but okay," the changeling said.
"The primary difference between our FSD and the ones used by equastian vessels, besides size and complexity, lies in the type of alloy used to construct the drive mechanism. In our ships, the magic energy converter in the heart of the FSD contains a bio-mechanical composite made up of individual crystalline fibers which form complex molecular structures of extraordinary rigidity and strength when woven together with a matrix of rare earth metals. This allows us to achieve efficiencies five times higher than those found in the ships built by other species."
The more the changeling talked, the more interested my commander seemed to become. I, on the other hoof, was starting to have second thoughts about asking such a question.
"Wow, I would love to have a drive like that on my ship. Is it possible to get one?" Pinwheel asked.
The changeling's eyes narrowed. "I think you're doing well enough with the technology we already..."
But his ship avatar interrupted him by giving him a not so gentle kick in the shins.
"S-sorry." He apologized.
"I think it's high time we returned to our ships." The changeling ship avatar said hurriedly and turned away from us, urging her pilot to follow.
With the changelings gone, we concluded our business with the cargo agent and headed back to our respective ships.
Back in my cockpit, my commander wondered out loud, "What were they talking about? What were the Queen's orders?"
"Uuh.. we probably shouldn't ask too many questions about that." I suggested.
"But if they can make FSDs that are five times more efficient than ours..." He pondered aloud.
"Yeah, I know." I sighed.
Pinwheel stared at the galaxy map. "We should go back to Sirius. Maybe we can find out something more there."
I sighed. "Do you really want to prod where your hooves don't belong? We've already poked around with one of them and got a lesson in humility, haven't you?"
He shook his head slowly. "I really feel like there is a part of the story that has been left untold. They say it is taboo, but I think that doesn't apply to us. Our society does not place the same kind of restrictions on information sharing."
"Maybe. But maybe it's better for us to keep out of it."
"Why do you say that, Connie?" he asked me curiously.
"I'm not sure yet. I just have this feeling that I am missing something important."
"So you really fancy yourself a spy now. Is that it, commander?" I replied with mock indignation.
"I can't believe you're making fun of me! You're the one who was asking questions!"
I rolled my eyes. "Yes, but I also knew when to stop. We didn't find out anything we didn't already know."
"Then why do I feel like it's unfinished business?"
I sighed again. "Well... I guess we can store the remaining ore here in a warehouse to get to Sirius quicker. We'll pick it up once you're bored of pretending to be an operative."
He stomped his hoof on the deck in anger. "I am NOT acting like a spy. I'm just going to go investigate for my own curiosity's sake!" he protested.
"You are such a foal sometimes." I sighed. "Alright. You're the commander. If you want to go and play spy, then go play spy! We'll go to Sirius and find out what we can about changelings and their FSD."
"Sounds good, Connie!" he said happily.
