Genesis Program

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
--John F. Kennedy

I woke up when someone threw water on my face. Breathing and coughing, I cleaned my face with my hands.

I looked around wearily, my instincts slowly kicking in as I got up. The place looked like a colonial-style cell of a 17th-century ship. The only light that it had was the moonlight, which palely entered through a hole with bars on one wall. My memory finally caught up with my confusion, past events coming back to my head.

"Where, why, what's going on!"

I waited for an answer with no response. My body jerked full awake when I anxiously looked for something in my pockets, which thanks to my luck, I found.

I sighed and turned on the FPP (Flux Personal Processor), a device created by the ASI to keep track of the Intrepid's cargo. It also contains other functions like satellite tracking services, an electromagnetic radiation detector, the status of my vitals, and basic entertainment.

"What is this... no, not this time, WHY TO ME!"

I kicked the wall, my mind going nuts as I jerked away from that compartment. The natives of this planet trapped me, and worst of all, I can't communicate with them. The unexpected sound of something metallic hitting the ground made me turn around quickly, and my frown deepened.

Suddenly, my eyes widened as I tensed.

An equine with one horn was practically glued to the wall, wavering and trembling. It was covering its head with its forelegs as if someone was about to attack it.

It seemed to be afraid, afraid of something or someone. I looked around and realised that I was alone, alone with this thing.

Which means it fears me.

I sighed and walked towards the bars that were separating us. It seemed so helpless.... but I wasn't sure of that, anyway.

Either way, I couldn't have it as an enemy, I had to make positive first contact.

I took a deep breath, leaving my concerns in the back of my mind.

"Please don't be afraid of me."

I said those words in the softest voice I could use. The poor thing was still shaking in fear. My heart sank when I heard sobs.

"Hey-look please, listen to me, I'm not going to hurt you, please, I'm incarcerated anyway, I can't go out, please...."

It stopped sobbing and looked up, her ruby-red eyes connecting with my light brown ones.

They were puffy and red, expressing fear.

"That's right, don't be afraid please."

The creature slowly lowered its forelegs, appearing to be hyperventilating. It was still shaking but at least it seemed calmer.

"That..... yeah, well, I just want to talk..."

It whimpered, beginning to move away from the wall.

"Indi thataqta skotalaniis?"

My first reaction was to be silent. The voice seemed feminine, smooth and almost musical. I have no way to know its gender, but I am going to leave it temporarily as a female, only for future reference.

I gulped and tried to show an apologetic face.

"Great, great, I'm not going to hurt you, I just… want to communicate."

I finished those words with an expression of ‘speaking’ with my hands.

She flinched, and for a second I thought that I lost her.

"Indi nturida miduthlíaltaha?"

She also made an expression with her hoof. I nodded rapidly at her words.

"Miduthlíaltaha, miduthlíaltaha," repeating the same expression, I tried to pronounce the same words.

"Nsi, hafdhaa miduthlíaltaha, salthalite indi mhaduthil," she replied firmly, fear dripping off her voice. A small smile appeared on her muzzle, sneering at the small step of confidence.

"Yes! Communicating, miduthlíaltaha."

She was silent for a few seconds until she took another step, staying still. I waited until she ceased whispering and babbling under her breath.

"Eben ana Crystal Rose," she said, pointing to herself.

I was silent for a few seconds, trying to decipher what she was telling to me.

Is she referring to her species or her name?

I went with the name. Maybe it's just a dumb conclusion, but I supposed now I had to give mine. I couldn't give my official name.......

So I quickly made one up.

"I am.... David de la Santa."

She smiled softly, "D---aaaa---vvid."

"Yeah David," I responded happily.

She moved closer to the cell, and with caution touched one bar, waiting for my reaction.

I stood still, making myself look harmless.

Much to my surprise, the curious creature giggled.

"Dha akti indi Daa-vid?"

She said while pointing at me. I immediately understood what she was referring to.

"Human."

It tilted its head in confusion, "hooman?"

"Yeah, human," I paused, trying to get in a more comfortable position, "and what are you Cry-stal R-o-s-e."

She backed off a bit, "martem."

"Martem, you are a-a m-m-martem."

"Nsi, eben ana bir martem," she responded.

Silence returned. I clenched my fists and quivered a it, trying to find a way to continue the conversation. I find it necessary to know more about her species.

That's when an idea entered my head, I could use Vakoch's mathematical approach, maybe if I show basic mathematical and scientific concepts.

I turned around and picked up a sharp stone that was on the ground. She looked with curious eyes at my struggle to draw something on the wooden floor.

I started with two lines, each apart from the other one, and ended it with two close lines. I continued to make representations of sums from 1 to 10, hoping that she would eventually understand me.

About 20 minutes passed by until finally 'Crystal Rose' understood the meaning behind the lines. She seemed to be happy, nodding whenever adding the lines, confirming that they have a similar base in mathematics, and some concepts could be universal for everyone.

She unexpectedly stopped and looked up.

That confused me, I did not understand what had just happened, why did she suddenly got like this?

She shook her head and went to the back of the room. Fear overwhelmed me, thinking that she abandoned me because perhaps I offended her or worse.

She turned a warm light on, as I could finally see this equine, that as far as I can remember, I think that I already saw her on the main deck.

Crystal Rose brought a lamp near the cell with her mouth, which she placed next to the bars.

She turned back again, bringing what appeared to be an old scroll.

I was quiet. She was sorting several things on the floor, and continued by extending the scroll, revealing a map.

My eyes widened, as the mapping looked like they did it in the 18th or 19th century.

Her horn glowed, and mysterious energy caused a planimeter to float.

The FPP made a small sound, drawing my attention. The electromagnetic radiation levels were at 400 V/m, something that seemed incredibly strange to me. Those were not normal levels, they seemed to be incredibly high for the 'norm.'

The equine caught my attention again while pointing to the map.

It was not exact, but it did look a lot likes the one of the Intrepid. The continents had changed, a peculiarity, considering that in only thousands of years the actual continents drifted apart.

"Apmin ynap indi?"

She was wondering where I came from. Her expressions made this much easier, I must say.

I thought about pointing the Americas, but that would not do much good. With limited communication, I couldn't explain to her anything about my mission.

An emptiness took a hold of me, the fear that the Intrepid would be lost in these waters. I sighed, she noticed my sad expression but refrained from saying anything.

I shook my head while deciding my options. I thought about it, I can show her I came from space, something that it's not entirely a lie.

"I came from a place called Europe, but for you, the stars," I said.

She was silent, tilting her head to the side and scoffing all at once.

"E-uuuuurooooppeeeee?" she repeated forcefully.

"No, the stars, up in the sky," I said amused.

"Stars?" she mumbled, slowly looking up at the ceiling with a confused expression.

I snapped my fingers, pointing to the hole where the heavenly beauty was being showcased, "yes the stars."

She sat on her haunches, her eyes softening as she put a hoof over her mouth.

"Aln astrons ....."

"Yeah, that, wait a second, the astrons?"

She didn’t reply, her cheeks were turning into an interesting blue colour. She breathed rapidly, almost choking I might add, "indi proyat min aln astrons ..."

"Yeah, I come from the astrons, the stars."

She turned around shocked, "indi ana ye exoabiun."

I was silent while she processed the information. I mentally prayed that she would believe all of it, dodging a bullet with those words will make me a giant favour.

Something that shocked me was that word, astrons. It correlates with Astro, which if I'm not wrong comes from the Greek language, meaning something that comes from the cosmos, be it the stars, a heavenly body, or outer space as a whole.

A connection is present, now I'm sure of that. She referred to the stars with that word, maybe her language came from the Greek somewhere.

I took out the FPP again; I had the idea of recording in total the conversations that I could eventually have with her, and then looking for a connection either to Latin, Greek, or Arabic, but those are the only guesses I can think of.

The system can translate languages known to humans, it will be very useful in the future. The pronunciation of the words are not rigid, as I described earlier, they are almost musical but forced at the same time. I can't tell which is a vowel or which is a consonant, but I can deduce the constant accents in various words pronounced by them. I think that is not defined by the position it occupies, but by the graphic form, these words take in correlation with their syllables.

Although another thing I have in my mind are the letters. The map contained several names, which I described as a combination of Latin and Arabic letters.

“Crystal Rose,” I called her attention, snapping her out of her trance.

I moved to the back of the cell and again pointed towards the stars. Perhaps if I find other words based on the cosmos, since a lot of modern vocabulary on that subject was based on either Latin or Greek.

"Nsi?"

I sighed, searching for a landmark that I could find.

I jerked, and snapped my fingers again, "the moon," approaching her with caution, I pointed at the sliver in the sky. She was looking at me with great curiosity, "the moon, ummmm Luna."

Her eyes widened, "Luna?"

I nodded, starting to record the audio.

"Klaw!" she clapped her hooves, "Rashadká, wadh exoabiuni alajanibn profane giarifun al Priayimissa Luna!"

"Yeah Luna, the moon, the moon."

"Aftoc eíntam magnumsha!"

Her excitement dissipated when she noticed the device in my hand. She tilted her head.

"Ti mahdhto?"

She pointed at the FPP curiously. I snickered while pulling it closer to the bars so that she could saw it too.

"It's called FPP, it's a scientific device."

She was watching it like a child in a candy store. I pressed a button on the right, making the screen go to the main menu.

I startled her, she shrieked a bit before calm
ing down.

"Ohhhhhh."

An idea occurred to me, the perfect way for the first possible cultural exchange between our species. I paused the recording, going to the entertainment files available on the device.

"Here, I present to you a bit of human culture."

We get it on almost every night

When that moon is big and bright

It's a supernatural delight

Everybody was dancin 'in the moonlight

The sound startled her momentarily, making her ears to press against her head.

Slowly, she looked up again, smiled and relaxed. She closed her eyes; her tail swishing with the music.

"Ísrubam hdhaaf eaysi tújiddaan lalsydso Dav-i-d..... hooman."

I chuckled, hoping everything would work out.

"I am in problems this time, and the worst thing is that I'm alone."

Bone Dry Desert

"Your royal highnesses," a brown stallion with a yellow mane bowed at the presence of the two princesses, "it is a pleasure to have you here."

"The pleasure is ours, doctor," Celestia said with a small smile on her muzzle.

He nodded. They walked behind him while glancing at their surroundings.

"There was some sort of magical interruption in the magical field and apparently, the source came from this area," he said, pointing at a tall dune.

"A-a magical interruption?" Celestia asked with a raised eyebrow, "the last time one of those appeared was when Grogar..... invaded the frozen north."

He cleared his throat, "yeah.... but there is a curious difference, something completely independent of magic caused this interruption."

"W-what?!"

"That's right," the stallion sighed, "there is some non-magical device that interrupted the field and many ponies in my faculty got excited thinking that the possible theory of non-magic fields was confirmed, so they brought several mages to test this theory," he paused momentarily, "and none was confirmed, after all, this came out yesterday."

Reaching their destination, the princesses mouths fell wide open. Sand mostly covered the giant structure, but its ominous presence was still noticeable. It looked like a giant stone temple with a metallic door.

"In all of my years, I've seen nothing like this," Luna mumbled.

Several contraptions were buried under the sand, like if an entire city was buried at some point in the past.

"What's all of this?"

He looked back at the solar princess, "there were several conclusions made, but the most realistic that we could come up with was that this place in one way was a settlement created to inhibit magic in the times of Discord, or the other thing is that there is some complex mechanism near the mantle of Equus, and its energy is being concentrated nearby."

"What's that," Luna said while pointing at a concrete contraption.

He stopped, "we thought it was part of the first temple, but we believe that it's a monument."

"A monument?" Luna raised an eyebrow, "of what?"

"We don't know, we think it's depicting a creature, but it's really difficult to tell," in a flash, he made a folder appear, "the architects we brought said that it could depict a minotaur stretching its arms to the sides."

"At least we have somewhere to look for answers," Celestia said nonchalantly, "with luck the Minotaurian Kingdom could have in their archives some reference to an ancient settlement in this area."

He cleared his throat awkwardly, "yeah.... but this statue has an interesting property."

Celestia tilted her head, motioning for him to continue.

"You see, we found some iron reinforcing the monument, and of what we can tell, this entire area is at least a couple of thousand years old, meaning that-"

"The iron ore wasn't discovered until a couple of hundred years ago."

"Exactly, so we think that an ancient civilization of minotaurs could have created all of this by using some sort of amulet, which left a curse upon these lands at the same time."

"Tia," Luna turned to look at her sister, "what do you think it is."

"It looks apish to me," she said hesitantly.

"Could it be, you know," the doctor suggested with a frown.

Luna shook her head, and chuckled at the thought, "why would anyone make a statue depicting them."

He shrugged, "ancient cultures are a mystery, as they always have been."