Diaries of the Smooze Research Crew

After a short while I felt the capsule rotating. That meant I was to be landing soon; first I was able to even feel any kind of drag, which meant I was in a gravitational field, second the capsule was reorienting itself so its vertical axis was perpendicular to the surface.

Smooze itself came into view. I could see the sun to my left, partially hidden behind the planet. The ocean below had a deep violet tone with pinkish lights dancing where the sunlight reflected off the surface. I could see something lighting up at the borders of the viewing panel; the outer hull was heating up in the atmosphere. Gradually the outline of the planet transformed into a horizon.

"Station Smooze to incomer. Passenger transportation capsule is under control of Station Smooze. Everything is fine. Prepare for landing in two hundred and forty five – two hundred and forty four – two hundred and forty three – ..."

The voice itself was warm and friendly, but the words weren't pronounced naturally. Of course – there was nopony on the station, so it had to be an automatic voice.

The capsule shuddered as the parachute opened. Besides the countdown of the automatic voice and my own breathing it was quiet – the hull was thick enough to be soundproof.

My flight towards Smooze turned into falling towards its surface. The ground seemed to be growing rapidly and I couldn't see the station; it was most likely below me.

I began tumbling. This was a bit frightening, but I knew that the transportation device was built to correct those things. Also, the station was there to enhance the precision of the calculations done by the circuits on board. There was a tremor and the capsule stopped tumbling.

Suddenly my descent slowed down, I heard the hissing of pneumatics that where to take the force of impact and before the realization could sink in the viewing panel deactivated itself and the capsule hit the ground.

Now I understood what my physical training had been for. It wasn't painful, I wasn't bruised and the air wasn't pressed out of my lungs – all those things were a thing of the past, when interstellar travel was a thing for astronauts alone. Still, after the serene experience the travel had been until now I felt my body all too much – my stomach was revolting, my sense of balance was telling me that I was spinning wildly in all directions and my joints were tensed up.

"Station Smooze, null null. Passenger capsule safe and sound in port." What a strange way to put it – but then again ponies that were alone on a station would always need something beyond cool functional efficiency.

I still hadn't regained my sense of orientation. It took a moment to realize that I was just bobbing up and down until the energy from the impact was absorbed. After the worst was over, the door hissed and opened slowly.

The safety straps undid themselves and the pneumatic bed gave me a push in the back so I fell to my hooves.

The metal crackled behind me as it cooled down and ventilation shafts were sucking out the last traces of poisonous atmosphere that had come in here while I had been landing. The space port was brightly lit and tidy, safe for were the capsule had blackened the floor with soot.

I didn't step forward immediately. I stood on the ramp that led to a metal door. To my right tracks led from the capsule to a large metal gate. Almost everything here was metallic. Only the capsule was made of some kind of ceramic.

On the door there were 6 circles of different color. I knew them - violet for the physics complex, yellow for the chemical laboratories, black for the cybernetic complex, red for storage of research items and substances, pink for subsistence storage, green for the living quarters. The dots told me that I had to go through this door if I wanted to get to any of them.

After a while I shook my head.

No need to stand around doing nothing! I scolded myself.

Although it hadn't felt like it, the flight had taken two hours. For the whole time I had been squished into that air mattress, unable to move. I was covered in sweat and felt itchy all over. I needed a shower.

So I went through the door and followed the green arrows that were printed on the floor, guiding me through hallways until I reached a metal door that was varnished in green. Not that I needed the colors to guide me. I had been living in an exact copy of the station on Equestria for the past three months.

In the living quarters there were 6 habitations, 3 on each side of the central corridor, and a shower, located at the end of said corridor. As I was alone on the station either way and since I hadn't brought anything with me – everything I needed (besides books) was already here – I went straight to the shower.

It took me longer than was strictly necessary. I was lost in thought.

That the stars were far away suns instead of lights sprinkled onto the sky came as a great shock to Equestria when it was discovered. It implied, that while Celestia was moving only one such object, Luna had been moving millions of them. Still measurements showed that the magical exhaustion of the sisters didn't reflect that fact at all.

Even more upsetting was finding out that other stars had their own planets circling around them - and they did it all by themselves, with day-and-night cycle and everything. It almost seemed as if Celestia wasn't doing anything at all.

The sisters also didn't know anything about the matter and were as confused as anyone else.

As astrophysics advanced a startling discovery was made: Equestria's orbit shouldn't have been stable and the planet should have crashed into the sun long ago. Obviously that hadn't happened.

Finally a research team brought everything together in one paper: Celestia hadn't been raising the sun but she had been accelerating the planet just in the right way to keep it on it's orbit. It was calculated that she might slack off for maybe two months before the planet was irreversibly lost. Luna's way of moving the stars didn't require anywhere near the same precision as what Celestia was doing, explaining the difference in effort for moving one star.

This discovery, of course, was also very important to how we saw Smooze, but nobody in the scientific community wanted to jump to any premature conclusions.

This process had taken centuries and had shown how ignorant even the princesses were of everything around Equestria. Before that, nopony had considered flying into space and educating ponies on the beauty of the night had just been a matter of celestial mechanics and natural sciences.

A whole new world had opened to us. Well, I wasn't born back then, as all this was now centuries ago.

I stepped out of my shower and was immediately lost. I didn't know what to do. I was excited, so I didn't want to choose my lodgings and hide there, but at the same time I was exhausted from the flight so I didn't feel up to actually starting my field research.

While I toweled myself off I decided to just go read some of the papers on Smooze.