Project Gatewayby DeloreandudeTommyChaptersProject Gateway is GOEntry to EquestriaThe TownThe LibraryReturn homeA friend in another worldHomecomingThe FarmProject Gateway is GOApril 27th, 2047AD 6:00AM Atlanta, Georgia You wake up in your bed, your alarm buzzing at you, rain hits your window and a blast of thunder makes you fly out of bed. One hour later, you’re driving north on I-75 to your job at MilTEC Industries, in sub basement 27. You walk through the front door, you’re 15 minutes early. You say hi to the security guard, show him your credentials and take the elevator down to your workplace. The first thing you notice are two armed guards standing in the elevator with you, this is no normal day at work, this is the day that you and your co-workers have waited 25 years for. The day you cross into another universe. Since you’re early, you decide to give the machine a look. It’s a large machine, known as the UDA (Universal Displacement Apparatus), known by the public as “Project Gateway.” Even from the small part you can see you know that the entire machine is easily the size of a metropolitan public school (even though you know that schools now are more akin to youth detention centers with minimum educational value, you’re glad your mother sent you to a private school or you’d never have gotten this job). You see the chamber you’ll be standing in, it’s roughly the size of a phone booth (even though such devices haven’t existed in America for over 40 years). You then hear the elevator arrive with your co-workers in it. Show time. You walk into the test chamber wearing your Mark 7 hazard suit, a special suit designed to help you survive the 250,000rem of radiation you’re about to be bombarded with. It’s bulky as heck, but you don’t want to be splattered all over the inside of a multitrillion dollar science experiment. You receive your additional equipment, a specialized combination arm radio (designed to transmit to any universe in the multiverse using the recently discovered “infinium." A mineral which can make a radio with infinite range), neurally augmented telekinetic projector and life pack colloquially known as the “Armboy” as well as a “return pad” of sorts (which functions in a way similar to a snow disc, you sit on it and you will be returned to your normal dimension, it only functions if the UDA is turned on, however). You’ve been awake for only two hours and already you’re about to do something no lifeform has ever done before. You’re about to travel to another universe. You hear a voice over the loudspeaker begin to give a long speech. “1492, Christopher Columbus crosses the Atlantic and finds America…” You recognize the voice. It’s the voice of Barry Stevenson, the head of MilTEC industries, the largest company in the world. “1969, we crossed space and landed on our moon for the first time. 1971, Randy and Kevin Lancer send a letter through time. 2025, we land on Mars. 2039, Venus. Today we’re going infinitely further. Taking a step into what we can’t see, what we can’t reach, what we can’t touch, what we can only imagine. Another universe, another ‘everything.’ This is our Moonshot, gentlemen, this is our Marsshot, this is our destiny. Good luck, and godspeed.” You see a man in an expensive business suit walk into the chamber escorted by not two, but four armed guards. He walks up to you and shakes your hand and tells you something. “Son, if you survive this you’re getting the biggest raise in human history, courtesy of the CEO.” You salute each other and the CEO walks back up the stairs to the observation room. “Ready gentlemen? Let’s do this!” You step into the machine and close your eyes. “Universe number chosen, #4,815,162,342. Fuel mix stability has reached 99%, generators 1 through 4 are running at 920kw, all remaining systems nominal, multiversal map determined and set, ladies and gentlemen we are go, all systems are go, let’s do this!” A loud whirring sound surrounds you, it’s as if you’re inside a very large time displacer. You can see a bright flash behind your eyelids, it’s as if somebody just shoved a very bright flashlight under your eyelids. The entire world goes white. You feel like the floor just dropped out of the room you’re standing in. You feel as if you fall into a world of grass. Entry to EquestriaYou wake up in a field, but you can’t see anything yet. The bright light seems to have temporarily blinded you. You then realize that you can’t move, but can breathe just fine. As your eyes begin to recover and the phosphenes in your eyes obstructing your view begin to fade away from the stimulatory overload you just experienced, you see you’re sitting in the middle of a vast field of bright green grass. You see gray, snow capped mountains off in the distance. But you realize that this is no ordinary world, this is the world of a cartoon. The entire world, while realistic, is as surrealistic as it is realistic. “Hey, anybody home? Do you read?” You look down at your Armboy, you then make a startling observation, you’re a horse. You attempt to press the button to talk with your ha…hoof, but resort to the neural telekinesis module to do the work for you. “Yes, I read. And I’m a horse.” You say over the radio. “You’re a what?” “I’m a cartoon character in a cartoon reality, Mike. The universe I’m in is a cartoon world and now I’m somehow a horse.” “Are you okay?” “Apart from being a horse, yeah. I’m just peachy perfect. Now to figure out how to walk.” You try picking yourself up with your ar…forelegs but can’t. “Uh, Atlanta. I have a problem.” “What?” “I can’t get up with my suit on.” You remember now why you are supposed to ditch the suit as soon as you arrive in a universe, the sucker weighs 150 pounds due to all the radiation proofing. It takes you 5 minutes on earth to exit the suit (thanks in part to the helpful scientists being able to reach the buttons on the back easier) but here it’s going to be difficult, if not impossible since you can’t reach your back and you can't use telekinesis on things you can't see. You decide to use your telekinesis module to lift yourself up. You raise yourself to your fee…hooves and let yourself go. You land on the ground but manage to hold yourself up. “Atlanta, I guess I can hold myself up.” “Can you stand up?” You try to stand on your back legs but end up falling over again, flat on your back. Fortunately you land on a pebble which pushes the exact right button to open up the suit, releasing you from it. “Well, Atlanta, I’m out of the suit. Apparently coincidences happen in this universe a lot more than they do in ours.” “Good, good. Can you get me any readings on the climate?” “76.5 Fahrenheit with a relative humidity of 45%…Hold on, my compass doesn’t work on this planet. What the heck? How does this planet not have a magnetic field? It has to!” “Use the ADF mode on the suit to find it again so you can find it later.” You flip on the ADF mode switch, which turns on a radio beacon on the suit to help you find it again. “Atlanta, I think I see a city in the distance. Permission to enter and observe the populace?” “Permission granted” You walk towards the city. It’s at least ten miles from your current position. You walk down the dirt path, looking at the trees along the side of the road, the adorable little birds flying hither and yon, the snow-capped mountains off in the distance. However something strikes you as odd. This place seems familiar. It’s as if it’s from something you saw in your childhood, something your parents showed you from their childhood, something that you saw many years ago, perhaps even something you saw in a dream, but what. You know that there’s no way you or anybody…any anything you have come in contact with up until now could’ve had any idea this place existed…right? You remember reading the Thompson papers, a set of papers published in the late 1990’s which talked about the theory that anything that’s ever been thought of exists for real in another universe. That means every TV show, every book, every thought is factual and real in another universe. “Could this be something from a book I read? From a movie I saw or a TV show I watched? Had I thought this up? How in the world do I know about this?” Your train of thought is broken by something that causes even more confusion to rise from this situation. Another pony is standing in the middle of the road in front of you. This is no normal pony, this pony is green. Her (or is it his?) coat is the color of the ocean, a rather eye-friendly shade at that. “Um…Hi…” you say to him or her. He or she, continues staring at you blankly. “Uh…Guten Tag? Wie geht es Ihenen?” you say in your sloppy German you learned in high school. It continues to stare at you, but you notice something. It has a growing smile on its face. “Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask. “You’re not from around here, are you?” she says. “Oh good, you speak English.” “English? This is Equestrian you silly filly!” “Silly what?” “Oh sorry, I can tell that you really aren’t from around here!” She walks up to you and looks at your hi…flank. “What kind of cutie mark is that!?” You look at your…flank…and realize that you have something on it. “That’s just the MilTEC lo…wait, why is it on my skin!? I’ve never had a tattoo before, how do I get it off!?” “Your skin? Sir, I have no idea what kind of weird foalhood you had or where you came from, but you really have some catching up to do.” She walks up to you and looks at your high-tech device that’s on your arm. “What’s this? It says ‘MilTEC Scientific Armbo…Armb…Oh my Celestia I have to go.” She runs off, shooting you a glance with her yellow eyes as she does so. “Boy, people…ponies in this universe sure are weird. But at least they speak English.” The TownAfter hours of walking, you finally reach the town. “Okay, now surely I’m in Germany.” You look at the buildings, they all look exactly like German cottages. However, they’re a lot brighter colored than the cottages you’ve seen in pictures. “HEY THERE STRANGER!” says a bright pink pony. You’d nearly jump out of your shoes if you had any on. “MY NAME’S PINKIE PIE AND I’D LIKE TO BE YOUR FRIEND!” says the pony in the most high pitched voice you have ever heard in your entire life. “Woah, slow down, you’re talking at a million miles a second.” “Sorry. What’s your name?” “Mine’s Nero…what’s your name?” “P-I-N-K-I-E PIE!” “Oh…well that’s definitely…” “Hey, is that an leg-mounted telekinesis module and computer?” “Uh…Ma’am how did you know that?” “Well I…wait…OH NO, I HAVE TO GO RIGHT NOW! See ya’ later alligator!” says Pinkie Pie as she bolts off at the speed of a speeding bullet. “Wow, that was interesting.” you say to yourself as you continue exploring the city. So many ponies of so many different colors, it’s like looking at a little kid’s coloring book. There’s red ponies, green ponies, blue ponies. “See DJ PON-3 LIVE! Marech 20th at the Manehatten theater!” says one poster on the wall of a building. “This DEFINITELY reminds me of something, but WHAT!?” You see another poster “Watch and be amazed at the Great and Powerful Trixie live in Canterlot, April 1st at the Canterlot Castle Ballroom” says another poster. “These names…these ponies, why do they seem so familiar. It’s as if it was something my father used to show me when I was a kid.” You pull down the two posters, fold them up nicely into your arm computer’s small built in paper hatch and continue exploring. You decide to start window shopping to get a taste for this city’s economy. You pass by a pottery shop, a beauty parlor, a bakery. It’s all like some idealistic children’s cartoon. Children’s cartoon. You now remember, this looks exactly like a place from a cartoon your father used to watch when he was in his teen years. What was it called, “The Small Pony”? My Tiny Horse? You’ll look into it when you get home. “Atlanta, I’m going to see what I can find out about this place.” “Certainly, just remember to be careful since we can’t exactly send an EMT team to you if something goes wrong.” “Right.” You go up to a yellow pony with pink hair and wings. “Uh…hello. I was wondering if you could point me to a library or courthouse or somewhere where knowledge is kept.” “Oh…well you could…um…” says the yellow pony in the most timid voice imaginable. “It’s okay, ma’am, if you don’t want to tell me that’s fine.” “OH! I’m so sorry…so, so sorry…I uh…D’OH! Twilight’s Library, it’s the tree over there!” she says as she flys away in a nervous fit. “Wow, she’s like that girl I met in college only a million times worse.” You go up to a tiny orange pony who also has wings and purple hair. “Hey, could you point me to the Twilight Library?” “Sure, it’s right there, you can’t miss it.” Says the tiny pony, pointing at a gigantic tree that you can’t believe you didn’t notice in the first place. “Somebody lives in there?” “Some what? Uh, I’m going to guess you have some bizarre accent and meant to say ‘somepony’ but yeah, Twilight Sparkle lives in there. You should pay her a visit she’s very smart and nice.” “Thanks.” You say to her as you walk towards the gigantic tree. The LibraryYou enter the library and find a purple unicorn reading a book that looks to be longer than War and Peace. "Um...Hi." you say to the purple unicorn. "Hello." "So what can I do for you?" "Tell me about this town, I'm...new here." "Okay, where do I begin..." Three and a half solid hours of history later. "...and that's how Ponyville became the town it is today!" says the purple unicorn with a smile. "Um...that was a very interesting story. Could you tell me who runs this place?" "You aren't from anywhere around here are you?" "You wouldn't believe how much I've heard that today..." "Sorry, basically this whole land is run by Princess Celestia, she resides in her castle on top of mount Shezna." **Author's note: "I have absolutely no idea what the mountain is called, if it's called anything, so I picked out a random mountain name. If anybody knows what the name of the mountain is please let me know because I'm absolutely clueless. Thank you." "Shezna?" "It's a long story, would you like me to tell it to you?" "No, thank you. But could I tell you something." "Sure." "Well, I can explain why I don't know anything about this land." "Why don't you know?" "Well...have you ever heard of a thing called a 'multiverse'?" "The idea that for every possibility there's a universe that reflects that possibility, yes." "Well, basically I came here as a result of a 'science experiment' gone horribly right." "You...you're...you're from another...universe?" Twilight Sparkle stares at you with a mixture of confusion, curiosity and maybe even a tiny bit of fear. "Yes, I am from another universe. That's why I know nothing of this world." "I have so many questions about your universe! What are the ponies like? What's the princess' name? Is she a colt?" "No, no, no. I don't think you understand..." "What's not to understand? Doesn't your universe have ponies?" "Yes, but..." "So what's there to not understand?" "The world I come from isn't dominated by ponies...it's dominated by humans." "Humans? Is this your way of escaping tyranny or something?" "No. I am a human...in a pony's body." "Oh yeah? Prove it!" You think for a minute. How are you going to prove to her satisfaction that you're a human? "Well, I've got this..." You give her your ID badge, fortunately it wasn't modified by you entering this universe. "That's me, as a human." She looks at the picture in amazement. "Your eyes...your mane...they're the same!" "I don't think anybody knows exactly how the machine works, but a body suit I was wearing became a pony-sized body suit when I came here. My Armboy also became pony-compatible." "I must tell Princess Celestia!" "No. We should wait." "What? Why? This is a breakthrough beyond that of any breakthrough we've seen before!" "Listen, I'm not sure if I understand the social climate of this world enough to be able to explain myself without causing a major stir." "Then explain to me. Tell me what your world is like." "What do you want to know?" "Everything." Five and a half hours of knowledge later "...and that's basically the story so far." you say with a grin on your face. "Wow. I'm amazed at your world. It's so much like ours, but so different!" "Yeah. Your world is absolutely amazing, by the way." "As is yours! I would love to see your world! Can I?" "I'll have to figure out if I could. You'd need a hazard suit and a return pad..." "A what now?" "Basically when you enter another universe you're exposed to massive quantities of what's known as 'gamma radiation' which can lead to diseases and death. At the levels you experience when traveling to another universe, you'd literally become a nasty mess on the inside of the dimension machine." "Oh, that's not something pleasant to think about." "Exactly, that's why I need to go to my body suit and get back home, it's getting late." "Could I come with you? I mean, to your body suit that is. I want to see it." "Um...sure, I might need help getting back into it as well so I guess you have to come with me." "Great! I'll grab my stuff." Twilight's horn begins to glow and she pulls together a tent, a camera and a lantern from a shelf. "Wow, how did you do that? Right, you're a unicorn." "Let's go!" Return homeYou return to your power suit, which is in the exact same place you left it (thankfully ponies aren’t as likely to steal things as humans are). “Well, here it is.” You say to Twilight Sparkle “Boy, humans sure like putting their cutie marks on everything.” Says Twilight Sparkle, pointing at the MilTEC logo-soaked hazard suit. “Humans don’t have cutie marks, that’s the logo for the company I work for.” “Oh…Well, that explains it.” “Well, off I go. I’ll visit you again tomorrow.” You get into your power suit and sit on the return dish. “I’ll be here when you return!” You press the button to return yourself to the human world. The whole world goes white and you hear a mighty roar as you’re returned to your world. As the bright light fades you open your eyes to find you’re in the last place you’d expect to be. You’re sitting on the roof of the MilTEC building, an 87-floor tower! “Uh, Atlanta I’m back…but I’m not where you’d expect me to be…” “Where are you, Nero?” “I’m on the roof…but at least I have hands again.” You get yourself down from the roof and are greeted by the head of MilTEC once again, this time with 8 armed guards around him. “Well son, you’ve done it. You’ve done what we didn’t think to do until just a few centuries ago but weren’t able to actually accomplish until just now, and for that you get a new paycheck.” He hands you your paycheck and you nearly jump out of your suit. You’ve been given a bonus to the tune of 6 million dollars! You’re rich! “Thanks!” you’d probably give your boss a hug if you weren’t wearing a power suit that’s probably not the most comfortable thing to be given a hug in. You return home and immediately begin trying to find out why the world you were in was so familiar. As you search the internet you find out about the “brony movement,” a massive social movement based around the show “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” which released in 2010. You’re amazed at how much art was created in such a little time, how much music was made. Rumors even went around that the head of MilTEC himself was a brony (he later confirmed this, although nobody’s sure if this was really true or if it was just a marketing ploy to try and improve the 18-34 male demographic). You’re amazed at how such a show became so popular in such a short amount of time. The show ran for 9 seasons before it ended, but in that time over 12 million people became “bronies.” It changed the face of television for the better as many other previously “girly” shows attempted to match the success of the show (though most of these attempts at “de-girly-izing” the shows usually fell flat on their faces compared to My Little Pony). You remember your father told you how he was a “brony” back in the day. He tried showing you laser discs of the show when you were a kid (laser discs had a short resurgence in the mid-2020s due to the nostalgia factor of disc-based mediums among a growing youth demographic). As you go to bed, you think to yourself how wonderful the following months are going to be. A friend in another worldThree months later You re-enter Equestria, this time having Twilight Sparkle handy to get you out of your suit (she no longer camps out by your suit, now she just walks there every morning), you walk down the road but you see a familiar face. The green pony you met the first time you came here. “Excuse me, I have to have a word with you, sir.” says the green pony “Certainly.” “I’m not entirely sure how to tell you this, but I think you need to know that I’m a lot more like you than you might think.” “How so?” “I know that you’re not from here. By ‘not from here’ I mean really not from here.” “Um…okay.” “Let me just say that I’m from where you are from.” “I…I don’t think I understand.” “Come to my house at 3094 Celestian Avenue at 4PM today. I’ll explain everything. Don’t let anybody follow you.” “Anybody? Don’t you mea-” You’re cut off by a hoof to the mouth. “I’m sick of hearing that ‘everypony’ nonsense too. Just say ‘everybody’ to me, kapeesh?” “Um, yeah I kapeesh.” Later that day… You visit the mysterious pony’s house. “Hello? Is anybody home.” You enter the house, it’s filled with posters. But these aren’t any ordinary posters. These are posters for human things. “Well, you showed up” says the green pony, emerging from another room. “Why yes, what kind of pony would I be if I didn’t?” “What kind of person would you be.” Says the pony back to you. “What do you mean person?” “Listen, I know you’re not a pony on the inside. I saw you arrive here last week. At first I thought that you were just some weirdo from another part of this Technicolor world of happiness, but when I saw you were appearing at normal intervals every day I knew something was up. So I followed you to your power suit one night and saw that you are what I am, a human in a pony’s body.” “What!? But I was the first…how…HOW!?” “Seven years ago I was supposed to be time displaced to 2024 to see my great grandmother one last time before she passed away, since I was too young at the time to have really known her. However, something went terribly askew with the time displacer and I ended up not in 2024 New York but here in who-knows-when Equestria.” She points to the posters on the wall. “These were going to be presents for my great grandmother so she could see her grandchild. Please, I beg you, bring me home with you. I want to see her again so bad. I want to see my world again!” says the pony. “Excellent, so why do you have a cutie mark that’s not some logo?” you ask the green pony. “I guess I was too young when I was displaced or maybe time travel causes you to get a random cutie mark and color when you get universally displaced with a time machine. I got a lyre, so I decided to go by the name ‘Lyra Heartstrings’ instead of my real name, Barbra Frank. I never really liked the lyre until I started playing it, turns out I'm actually really good.” You think for a minute how you could get her home. “I think I know a solution.” You call up your supervisor on your Armboy, explaining to your best knowledge the situation and request that you stay the night. “We’ll need to get you fitted for a hazard suit, do you know anybody in town that could make you a body suit that we could use as a template back home?” “Now you’re talking!” HomecomingYou arrive at the local “Carousel Boutique” and are greeted by a gorgeous white unicorn with three diamonds on her flank. “How may I help you two?” “I need a body suit like this made for my friend here.” You 'lightly' set down your 150 pound body suit on the floor. Regardless of how light you put it down you always manage to make a loud thud as the suit lands on the floor. “Oh…well what on EARTH is this thing made out of? Iron?” “Actually it’s a titanium and lead alloy with asbestos fabric on the inside to allow for proper fire proofing.” The pony simply stares at you in confusion. “I honestly don’t think you know what I do, I’m not a scientist I’m a seamstress.” “All I need you to do is to make a close-fitting bodysuit for my friend here so I can give this to the lab bo…I mean…so I can make her one of these.” “Okay…I think I could do that.” 3 hours of joyful sewing and singing later... “Well, that was nice, how does it fit?” Lyra tries on the suit, it’s made out of cotton. “It fits like a glove, thanks!” “So, where’s my payment?” You plunk down a 50 dollar bill on the counter. “What kind of funny money is this?” You quickly realize your mistake and put the money back in your Armboy’s wallet. Lyra smiles and gives ten bits to Rarity. Lyra whispers to you “One thing I’ve learned is that you need to ditch your money early so you don’t do what you just did.” “What is that thing on your arm anyway? Some kind of bracelet?” asks Rarity “It’s an arm mounted telekin…I mean, yes it’s a bracelet. It’s made in Japa…I mean…I forgot.” “Well, that’s rather interesting” says Rarity. That night you return home to Atlanta and give the scientists the bodysuit (which, fortunately, became a human bodysuit in the process of being transferred). Three weeks later You return to Lyra, who you’ve become quite the friend of while the new body suit was being made. “It’s time.” you say to her. She nods and follows you to the field where you always arrive. She puts on her (newly made) body suit and gets on her teleportation disc. “I’ll see you on the other side.” She presses the button and disappears in a brilliant flash of light. You do the same and return to your world. When you arrive in your world, you're greeted by Lyra, now Barbra. She walks up to you and gives you a hug. "I'm so glad to see you again!" she says. "That was one heck of a journey." you say to her. "Now let's get you to your grandmother." You drive her to your local FutureTECH time travel outlet and wave her goodbye. You drive home in the rain. However, you remember was the last day of the Gateway program. It'll be over 10 years before this program's results can go public, with commercialized versions coming at least another decade after that. You'll miss your friends, but hopefully you'll one day return to see them once more. The End The FarmYou walk by a farm, it has appletrees as far as the eye can see. “Boy, these ponies sure do love apples.” You see an orange pony standing by the gate to the farm. You decide to talk to her. “You speak Engl…Equestrian, right?” “Why yes I do, pardner.” Says the orange pony. “So what’s your name?” “Applejack, yours?” “Mine’s…Nero” You remember that you’re not allowed to give your name out to anybody due to a piece of paper you signed when you signed up for this program 5 years ago. You’re only allowed to use your given code name. You were allowed to make up your name so you decided upon “Nero” since he was one of your parent’s favorite musicians way back in the day. “Nero, huh? That’s a rather odd name for a pony, I’d say.” She looks at your arm computer. “What’s that thingamajigger on your leg? Some kind of bracelet?” she says as she starts looking at the device. “Uh…it’s an arm-mounted telekinesis module. In short, it gives me the ability to lift objects I couldn’t lift otherwise.” “Okay, I’m going to assume that means it costs a million bits and is only available to the most classy ponies around.” “Actually, it costs 239,000 dollars. What’s a bit?” “What the hay is a dollar? You okay, hun?” says Applejack while putting a hoof on your head. “I’m fine, I’m just from…not around here.” “Oh, that explains it. Well then, it’s been nice meeting you, Nero. Here, have an apple, courtesy of Sweet Apple Acres.” She hands you probably the sweetest, juiciest looking apple you’ve ever seen in your life. “Wow, thanks. How do you grow them this well?” “We grow them with love, that’s how. No silly unicorn magic here.” “Yeah, you don’t need any of that nonsense.” “Say what now?” says Applejack. “Uh, I’d better get going now. Thanks for the apple.” “Run along now, you’re a very interesting pony.” You continue down the road to the town.
Project Gateway is GOApril 27th, 2047AD 6:00AM Atlanta, Georgia You wake up in your bed, your alarm buzzing at you, rain hits your window and a blast of thunder makes you fly out of bed. One hour later, you’re driving north on I-75 to your job at MilTEC Industries, in sub basement 27. You walk through the front door, you’re 15 minutes early. You say hi to the security guard, show him your credentials and take the elevator down to your workplace. The first thing you notice are two armed guards standing in the elevator with you, this is no normal day at work, this is the day that you and your co-workers have waited 25 years for. The day you cross into another universe. Since you’re early, you decide to give the machine a look. It’s a large machine, known as the UDA (Universal Displacement Apparatus), known by the public as “Project Gateway.” Even from the small part you can see you know that the entire machine is easily the size of a metropolitan public school (even though you know that schools now are more akin to youth detention centers with minimum educational value, you’re glad your mother sent you to a private school or you’d never have gotten this job). You see the chamber you’ll be standing in, it’s roughly the size of a phone booth (even though such devices haven’t existed in America for over 40 years). You then hear the elevator arrive with your co-workers in it. Show time. You walk into the test chamber wearing your Mark 7 hazard suit, a special suit designed to help you survive the 250,000rem of radiation you’re about to be bombarded with. It’s bulky as heck, but you don’t want to be splattered all over the inside of a multitrillion dollar science experiment. You receive your additional equipment, a specialized combination arm radio (designed to transmit to any universe in the multiverse using the recently discovered “infinium." A mineral which can make a radio with infinite range), neurally augmented telekinetic projector and life pack colloquially known as the “Armboy” as well as a “return pad” of sorts (which functions in a way similar to a snow disc, you sit on it and you will be returned to your normal dimension, it only functions if the UDA is turned on, however). You’ve been awake for only two hours and already you’re about to do something no lifeform has ever done before. You’re about to travel to another universe. You hear a voice over the loudspeaker begin to give a long speech. “1492, Christopher Columbus crosses the Atlantic and finds America…” You recognize the voice. It’s the voice of Barry Stevenson, the head of MilTEC industries, the largest company in the world. “1969, we crossed space and landed on our moon for the first time. 1971, Randy and Kevin Lancer send a letter through time. 2025, we land on Mars. 2039, Venus. Today we’re going infinitely further. Taking a step into what we can’t see, what we can’t reach, what we can’t touch, what we can only imagine. Another universe, another ‘everything.’ This is our Moonshot, gentlemen, this is our Marsshot, this is our destiny. Good luck, and godspeed.” You see a man in an expensive business suit walk into the chamber escorted by not two, but four armed guards. He walks up to you and shakes your hand and tells you something. “Son, if you survive this you’re getting the biggest raise in human history, courtesy of the CEO.” You salute each other and the CEO walks back up the stairs to the observation room. “Ready gentlemen? Let’s do this!” You step into the machine and close your eyes. “Universe number chosen, #4,815,162,342. Fuel mix stability has reached 99%, generators 1 through 4 are running at 920kw, all remaining systems nominal, multiversal map determined and set, ladies and gentlemen we are go, all systems are go, let’s do this!” A loud whirring sound surrounds you, it’s as if you’re inside a very large time displacer. You can see a bright flash behind your eyelids, it’s as if somebody just shoved a very bright flashlight under your eyelids. The entire world goes white. You feel like the floor just dropped out of the room you’re standing in. You feel as if you fall into a world of grass.
Entry to EquestriaYou wake up in a field, but you can’t see anything yet. The bright light seems to have temporarily blinded you. You then realize that you can’t move, but can breathe just fine. As your eyes begin to recover and the phosphenes in your eyes obstructing your view begin to fade away from the stimulatory overload you just experienced, you see you’re sitting in the middle of a vast field of bright green grass. You see gray, snow capped mountains off in the distance. But you realize that this is no ordinary world, this is the world of a cartoon. The entire world, while realistic, is as surrealistic as it is realistic. “Hey, anybody home? Do you read?” You look down at your Armboy, you then make a startling observation, you’re a horse. You attempt to press the button to talk with your ha…hoof, but resort to the neural telekinesis module to do the work for you. “Yes, I read. And I’m a horse.” You say over the radio. “You’re a what?” “I’m a cartoon character in a cartoon reality, Mike. The universe I’m in is a cartoon world and now I’m somehow a horse.” “Are you okay?” “Apart from being a horse, yeah. I’m just peachy perfect. Now to figure out how to walk.” You try picking yourself up with your ar…forelegs but can’t. “Uh, Atlanta. I have a problem.” “What?” “I can’t get up with my suit on.” You remember now why you are supposed to ditch the suit as soon as you arrive in a universe, the sucker weighs 150 pounds due to all the radiation proofing. It takes you 5 minutes on earth to exit the suit (thanks in part to the helpful scientists being able to reach the buttons on the back easier) but here it’s going to be difficult, if not impossible since you can’t reach your back and you can't use telekinesis on things you can't see. You decide to use your telekinesis module to lift yourself up. You raise yourself to your fee…hooves and let yourself go. You land on the ground but manage to hold yourself up. “Atlanta, I guess I can hold myself up.” “Can you stand up?” You try to stand on your back legs but end up falling over again, flat on your back. Fortunately you land on a pebble which pushes the exact right button to open up the suit, releasing you from it. “Well, Atlanta, I’m out of the suit. Apparently coincidences happen in this universe a lot more than they do in ours.” “Good, good. Can you get me any readings on the climate?” “76.5 Fahrenheit with a relative humidity of 45%…Hold on, my compass doesn’t work on this planet. What the heck? How does this planet not have a magnetic field? It has to!” “Use the ADF mode on the suit to find it again so you can find it later.” You flip on the ADF mode switch, which turns on a radio beacon on the suit to help you find it again. “Atlanta, I think I see a city in the distance. Permission to enter and observe the populace?” “Permission granted” You walk towards the city. It’s at least ten miles from your current position. You walk down the dirt path, looking at the trees along the side of the road, the adorable little birds flying hither and yon, the snow-capped mountains off in the distance. However something strikes you as odd. This place seems familiar. It’s as if it’s from something you saw in your childhood, something your parents showed you from their childhood, something that you saw many years ago, perhaps even something you saw in a dream, but what. You know that there’s no way you or anybody…any anything you have come in contact with up until now could’ve had any idea this place existed…right? You remember reading the Thompson papers, a set of papers published in the late 1990’s which talked about the theory that anything that’s ever been thought of exists for real in another universe. That means every TV show, every book, every thought is factual and real in another universe. “Could this be something from a book I read? From a movie I saw or a TV show I watched? Had I thought this up? How in the world do I know about this?” Your train of thought is broken by something that causes even more confusion to rise from this situation. Another pony is standing in the middle of the road in front of you. This is no normal pony, this pony is green. Her (or is it his?) coat is the color of the ocean, a rather eye-friendly shade at that. “Um…Hi…” you say to him or her. He or she, continues staring at you blankly. “Uh…Guten Tag? Wie geht es Ihenen?” you say in your sloppy German you learned in high school. It continues to stare at you, but you notice something. It has a growing smile on its face. “Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask. “You’re not from around here, are you?” she says. “Oh good, you speak English.” “English? This is Equestrian you silly filly!” “Silly what?” “Oh sorry, I can tell that you really aren’t from around here!” She walks up to you and looks at your hi…flank. “What kind of cutie mark is that!?” You look at your…flank…and realize that you have something on it. “That’s just the MilTEC lo…wait, why is it on my skin!? I’ve never had a tattoo before, how do I get it off!?” “Your skin? Sir, I have no idea what kind of weird foalhood you had or where you came from, but you really have some catching up to do.” She walks up to you and looks at your high-tech device that’s on your arm. “What’s this? It says ‘MilTEC Scientific Armbo…Armb…Oh my Celestia I have to go.” She runs off, shooting you a glance with her yellow eyes as she does so. “Boy, people…ponies in this universe sure are weird. But at least they speak English.”
The TownAfter hours of walking, you finally reach the town. “Okay, now surely I’m in Germany.” You look at the buildings, they all look exactly like German cottages. However, they’re a lot brighter colored than the cottages you’ve seen in pictures. “HEY THERE STRANGER!” says a bright pink pony. You’d nearly jump out of your shoes if you had any on. “MY NAME’S PINKIE PIE AND I’D LIKE TO BE YOUR FRIEND!” says the pony in the most high pitched voice you have ever heard in your entire life. “Woah, slow down, you’re talking at a million miles a second.” “Sorry. What’s your name?” “Mine’s Nero…what’s your name?” “P-I-N-K-I-E PIE!” “Oh…well that’s definitely…” “Hey, is that an leg-mounted telekinesis module and computer?” “Uh…Ma’am how did you know that?” “Well I…wait…OH NO, I HAVE TO GO RIGHT NOW! See ya’ later alligator!” says Pinkie Pie as she bolts off at the speed of a speeding bullet. “Wow, that was interesting.” you say to yourself as you continue exploring the city. So many ponies of so many different colors, it’s like looking at a little kid’s coloring book. There’s red ponies, green ponies, blue ponies. “See DJ PON-3 LIVE! Marech 20th at the Manehatten theater!” says one poster on the wall of a building. “This DEFINITELY reminds me of something, but WHAT!?” You see another poster “Watch and be amazed at the Great and Powerful Trixie live in Canterlot, April 1st at the Canterlot Castle Ballroom” says another poster. “These names…these ponies, why do they seem so familiar. It’s as if it was something my father used to show me when I was a kid.” You pull down the two posters, fold them up nicely into your arm computer’s small built in paper hatch and continue exploring. You decide to start window shopping to get a taste for this city’s economy. You pass by a pottery shop, a beauty parlor, a bakery. It’s all like some idealistic children’s cartoon. Children’s cartoon. You now remember, this looks exactly like a place from a cartoon your father used to watch when he was in his teen years. What was it called, “The Small Pony”? My Tiny Horse? You’ll look into it when you get home. “Atlanta, I’m going to see what I can find out about this place.” “Certainly, just remember to be careful since we can’t exactly send an EMT team to you if something goes wrong.” “Right.” You go up to a yellow pony with pink hair and wings. “Uh…hello. I was wondering if you could point me to a library or courthouse or somewhere where knowledge is kept.” “Oh…well you could…um…” says the yellow pony in the most timid voice imaginable. “It’s okay, ma’am, if you don’t want to tell me that’s fine.” “OH! I’m so sorry…so, so sorry…I uh…D’OH! Twilight’s Library, it’s the tree over there!” she says as she flys away in a nervous fit. “Wow, she’s like that girl I met in college only a million times worse.” You go up to a tiny orange pony who also has wings and purple hair. “Hey, could you point me to the Twilight Library?” “Sure, it’s right there, you can’t miss it.” Says the tiny pony, pointing at a gigantic tree that you can’t believe you didn’t notice in the first place. “Somebody lives in there?” “Some what? Uh, I’m going to guess you have some bizarre accent and meant to say ‘somepony’ but yeah, Twilight Sparkle lives in there. You should pay her a visit she’s very smart and nice.” “Thanks.” You say to her as you walk towards the gigantic tree.
The LibraryYou enter the library and find a purple unicorn reading a book that looks to be longer than War and Peace. "Um...Hi." you say to the purple unicorn. "Hello." "So what can I do for you?" "Tell me about this town, I'm...new here." "Okay, where do I begin..." Three and a half solid hours of history later. "...and that's how Ponyville became the town it is today!" says the purple unicorn with a smile. "Um...that was a very interesting story. Could you tell me who runs this place?" "You aren't from anywhere around here are you?" "You wouldn't believe how much I've heard that today..." "Sorry, basically this whole land is run by Princess Celestia, she resides in her castle on top of mount Shezna." **Author's note: "I have absolutely no idea what the mountain is called, if it's called anything, so I picked out a random mountain name. If anybody knows what the name of the mountain is please let me know because I'm absolutely clueless. Thank you." "Shezna?" "It's a long story, would you like me to tell it to you?" "No, thank you. But could I tell you something." "Sure." "Well, I can explain why I don't know anything about this land." "Why don't you know?" "Well...have you ever heard of a thing called a 'multiverse'?" "The idea that for every possibility there's a universe that reflects that possibility, yes." "Well, basically I came here as a result of a 'science experiment' gone horribly right." "You...you're...you're from another...universe?" Twilight Sparkle stares at you with a mixture of confusion, curiosity and maybe even a tiny bit of fear. "Yes, I am from another universe. That's why I know nothing of this world." "I have so many questions about your universe! What are the ponies like? What's the princess' name? Is she a colt?" "No, no, no. I don't think you understand..." "What's not to understand? Doesn't your universe have ponies?" "Yes, but..." "So what's there to not understand?" "The world I come from isn't dominated by ponies...it's dominated by humans." "Humans? Is this your way of escaping tyranny or something?" "No. I am a human...in a pony's body." "Oh yeah? Prove it!" You think for a minute. How are you going to prove to her satisfaction that you're a human? "Well, I've got this..." You give her your ID badge, fortunately it wasn't modified by you entering this universe. "That's me, as a human." She looks at the picture in amazement. "Your eyes...your mane...they're the same!" "I don't think anybody knows exactly how the machine works, but a body suit I was wearing became a pony-sized body suit when I came here. My Armboy also became pony-compatible." "I must tell Princess Celestia!" "No. We should wait." "What? Why? This is a breakthrough beyond that of any breakthrough we've seen before!" "Listen, I'm not sure if I understand the social climate of this world enough to be able to explain myself without causing a major stir." "Then explain to me. Tell me what your world is like." "What do you want to know?" "Everything." Five and a half hours of knowledge later "...and that's basically the story so far." you say with a grin on your face. "Wow. I'm amazed at your world. It's so much like ours, but so different!" "Yeah. Your world is absolutely amazing, by the way." "As is yours! I would love to see your world! Can I?" "I'll have to figure out if I could. You'd need a hazard suit and a return pad..." "A what now?" "Basically when you enter another universe you're exposed to massive quantities of what's known as 'gamma radiation' which can lead to diseases and death. At the levels you experience when traveling to another universe, you'd literally become a nasty mess on the inside of the dimension machine." "Oh, that's not something pleasant to think about." "Exactly, that's why I need to go to my body suit and get back home, it's getting late." "Could I come with you? I mean, to your body suit that is. I want to see it." "Um...sure, I might need help getting back into it as well so I guess you have to come with me." "Great! I'll grab my stuff." Twilight's horn begins to glow and she pulls together a tent, a camera and a lantern from a shelf. "Wow, how did you do that? Right, you're a unicorn." "Let's go!"
Return homeYou return to your power suit, which is in the exact same place you left it (thankfully ponies aren’t as likely to steal things as humans are). “Well, here it is.” You say to Twilight Sparkle “Boy, humans sure like putting their cutie marks on everything.” Says Twilight Sparkle, pointing at the MilTEC logo-soaked hazard suit. “Humans don’t have cutie marks, that’s the logo for the company I work for.” “Oh…Well, that explains it.” “Well, off I go. I’ll visit you again tomorrow.” You get into your power suit and sit on the return dish. “I’ll be here when you return!” You press the button to return yourself to the human world. The whole world goes white and you hear a mighty roar as you’re returned to your world. As the bright light fades you open your eyes to find you’re in the last place you’d expect to be. You’re sitting on the roof of the MilTEC building, an 87-floor tower! “Uh, Atlanta I’m back…but I’m not where you’d expect me to be…” “Where are you, Nero?” “I’m on the roof…but at least I have hands again.” You get yourself down from the roof and are greeted by the head of MilTEC once again, this time with 8 armed guards around him. “Well son, you’ve done it. You’ve done what we didn’t think to do until just a few centuries ago but weren’t able to actually accomplish until just now, and for that you get a new paycheck.” He hands you your paycheck and you nearly jump out of your suit. You’ve been given a bonus to the tune of 6 million dollars! You’re rich! “Thanks!” you’d probably give your boss a hug if you weren’t wearing a power suit that’s probably not the most comfortable thing to be given a hug in. You return home and immediately begin trying to find out why the world you were in was so familiar. As you search the internet you find out about the “brony movement,” a massive social movement based around the show “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” which released in 2010. You’re amazed at how much art was created in such a little time, how much music was made. Rumors even went around that the head of MilTEC himself was a brony (he later confirmed this, although nobody’s sure if this was really true or if it was just a marketing ploy to try and improve the 18-34 male demographic). You’re amazed at how such a show became so popular in such a short amount of time. The show ran for 9 seasons before it ended, but in that time over 12 million people became “bronies.” It changed the face of television for the better as many other previously “girly” shows attempted to match the success of the show (though most of these attempts at “de-girly-izing” the shows usually fell flat on their faces compared to My Little Pony). You remember your father told you how he was a “brony” back in the day. He tried showing you laser discs of the show when you were a kid (laser discs had a short resurgence in the mid-2020s due to the nostalgia factor of disc-based mediums among a growing youth demographic). As you go to bed, you think to yourself how wonderful the following months are going to be.
A friend in another worldThree months later You re-enter Equestria, this time having Twilight Sparkle handy to get you out of your suit (she no longer camps out by your suit, now she just walks there every morning), you walk down the road but you see a familiar face. The green pony you met the first time you came here. “Excuse me, I have to have a word with you, sir.” says the green pony “Certainly.” “I’m not entirely sure how to tell you this, but I think you need to know that I’m a lot more like you than you might think.” “How so?” “I know that you’re not from here. By ‘not from here’ I mean really not from here.” “Um…okay.” “Let me just say that I’m from where you are from.” “I…I don’t think I understand.” “Come to my house at 3094 Celestian Avenue at 4PM today. I’ll explain everything. Don’t let anybody follow you.” “Anybody? Don’t you mea-” You’re cut off by a hoof to the mouth. “I’m sick of hearing that ‘everypony’ nonsense too. Just say ‘everybody’ to me, kapeesh?” “Um, yeah I kapeesh.” Later that day… You visit the mysterious pony’s house. “Hello? Is anybody home.” You enter the house, it’s filled with posters. But these aren’t any ordinary posters. These are posters for human things. “Well, you showed up” says the green pony, emerging from another room. “Why yes, what kind of pony would I be if I didn’t?” “What kind of person would you be.” Says the pony back to you. “What do you mean person?” “Listen, I know you’re not a pony on the inside. I saw you arrive here last week. At first I thought that you were just some weirdo from another part of this Technicolor world of happiness, but when I saw you were appearing at normal intervals every day I knew something was up. So I followed you to your power suit one night and saw that you are what I am, a human in a pony’s body.” “What!? But I was the first…how…HOW!?” “Seven years ago I was supposed to be time displaced to 2024 to see my great grandmother one last time before she passed away, since I was too young at the time to have really known her. However, something went terribly askew with the time displacer and I ended up not in 2024 New York but here in who-knows-when Equestria.” She points to the posters on the wall. “These were going to be presents for my great grandmother so she could see her grandchild. Please, I beg you, bring me home with you. I want to see her again so bad. I want to see my world again!” says the pony. “Excellent, so why do you have a cutie mark that’s not some logo?” you ask the green pony. “I guess I was too young when I was displaced or maybe time travel causes you to get a random cutie mark and color when you get universally displaced with a time machine. I got a lyre, so I decided to go by the name ‘Lyra Heartstrings’ instead of my real name, Barbra Frank. I never really liked the lyre until I started playing it, turns out I'm actually really good.” You think for a minute how you could get her home. “I think I know a solution.” You call up your supervisor on your Armboy, explaining to your best knowledge the situation and request that you stay the night. “We’ll need to get you fitted for a hazard suit, do you know anybody in town that could make you a body suit that we could use as a template back home?” “Now you’re talking!”
HomecomingYou arrive at the local “Carousel Boutique” and are greeted by a gorgeous white unicorn with three diamonds on her flank. “How may I help you two?” “I need a body suit like this made for my friend here.” You 'lightly' set down your 150 pound body suit on the floor. Regardless of how light you put it down you always manage to make a loud thud as the suit lands on the floor. “Oh…well what on EARTH is this thing made out of? Iron?” “Actually it’s a titanium and lead alloy with asbestos fabric on the inside to allow for proper fire proofing.” The pony simply stares at you in confusion. “I honestly don’t think you know what I do, I’m not a scientist I’m a seamstress.” “All I need you to do is to make a close-fitting bodysuit for my friend here so I can give this to the lab bo…I mean…so I can make her one of these.” “Okay…I think I could do that.” 3 hours of joyful sewing and singing later... “Well, that was nice, how does it fit?” Lyra tries on the suit, it’s made out of cotton. “It fits like a glove, thanks!” “So, where’s my payment?” You plunk down a 50 dollar bill on the counter. “What kind of funny money is this?” You quickly realize your mistake and put the money back in your Armboy’s wallet. Lyra smiles and gives ten bits to Rarity. Lyra whispers to you “One thing I’ve learned is that you need to ditch your money early so you don’t do what you just did.” “What is that thing on your arm anyway? Some kind of bracelet?” asks Rarity “It’s an arm mounted telekin…I mean, yes it’s a bracelet. It’s made in Japa…I mean…I forgot.” “Well, that’s rather interesting” says Rarity. That night you return home to Atlanta and give the scientists the bodysuit (which, fortunately, became a human bodysuit in the process of being transferred). Three weeks later You return to Lyra, who you’ve become quite the friend of while the new body suit was being made. “It’s time.” you say to her. She nods and follows you to the field where you always arrive. She puts on her (newly made) body suit and gets on her teleportation disc. “I’ll see you on the other side.” She presses the button and disappears in a brilliant flash of light. You do the same and return to your world. When you arrive in your world, you're greeted by Lyra, now Barbra. She walks up to you and gives you a hug. "I'm so glad to see you again!" she says. "That was one heck of a journey." you say to her. "Now let's get you to your grandmother." You drive her to your local FutureTECH time travel outlet and wave her goodbye. You drive home in the rain. However, you remember was the last day of the Gateway program. It'll be over 10 years before this program's results can go public, with commercialized versions coming at least another decade after that. You'll miss your friends, but hopefully you'll one day return to see them once more. The End
The FarmYou walk by a farm, it has appletrees as far as the eye can see. “Boy, these ponies sure do love apples.” You see an orange pony standing by the gate to the farm. You decide to talk to her. “You speak Engl…Equestrian, right?” “Why yes I do, pardner.” Says the orange pony. “So what’s your name?” “Applejack, yours?” “Mine’s…Nero” You remember that you’re not allowed to give your name out to anybody due to a piece of paper you signed when you signed up for this program 5 years ago. You’re only allowed to use your given code name. You were allowed to make up your name so you decided upon “Nero” since he was one of your parent’s favorite musicians way back in the day. “Nero, huh? That’s a rather odd name for a pony, I’d say.” She looks at your arm computer. “What’s that thingamajigger on your leg? Some kind of bracelet?” she says as she starts looking at the device. “Uh…it’s an arm-mounted telekinesis module. In short, it gives me the ability to lift objects I couldn’t lift otherwise.” “Okay, I’m going to assume that means it costs a million bits and is only available to the most classy ponies around.” “Actually, it costs 239,000 dollars. What’s a bit?” “What the hay is a dollar? You okay, hun?” says Applejack while putting a hoof on your head. “I’m fine, I’m just from…not around here.” “Oh, that explains it. Well then, it’s been nice meeting you, Nero. Here, have an apple, courtesy of Sweet Apple Acres.” She hands you probably the sweetest, juiciest looking apple you’ve ever seen in your life. “Wow, thanks. How do you grow them this well?” “We grow them with love, that’s how. No silly unicorn magic here.” “Yeah, you don’t need any of that nonsense.” “Say what now?” says Applejack. “Uh, I’d better get going now. Thanks for the apple.” “Run along now, you’re a very interesting pony.” You continue down the road to the town.
