“The most important technology was invented alongside the inception of the Pony, and it is not even a technology”
There was nothing more disappointing to Starlight Blossom than watching a pegasus foal trying to flap its wings and failing to achieve anything close to the act of flight. Such was the disappointment she was used to, living on the one planet in the galaxy magic ceased to touch.
‘What is it like up there?’ She wondered, day dreaming about what could beyond the so-far impenetrable barrier which surrounded their world, a mountainous planet with beautiful valleys between each group of tall spires. From what she knew, there were once sprawling cities across its landscape, but those were mostly scrapped in favor of agricultural districts to feed the ever-growing population on the trapped world of ponies.
“Starlight, could you take a moment to water the garden?” Called her sister, Starfire, from the porch. “I really don’t want our tomato crop going bad this year. You know that mom loves our tomatoes!”
“I’ll get on it,” The pink unicorn said in response, turning her gaze from the sky to her sister, and then to the garden. Trotting past the flower patches, she carefully moved her hooves across the floor to find the crops.
While watering the several crops planted in their sections of the garden, Starlight looked along her village, enjoying the calmness of it all, but still feeling that pang of envy she had for those above the barrier.
Beyond the occasional mass transport stations, her valley could pass for one seen in ancient Equestria, most of the tech being unseen or placed in the most hidden of locations. She did not even need to water the plants, but she did so because it gave it a special purpose; because it helped her feel special, like the earth ponies who thrived here. They were the only ones who seemed to have any of their magic left.
Starlight couldn’t help but giggle at the thought of her mother chastising her for watering the plants wrong.
“What’re you laughing about?” Starfire had trotted out of the home, taking a nip at the flowers as she passed them by.
“Just reminiscing about mom’s nagging on literally everything,” Star rolled her eyes, giggling some more as the memories came to mind. She would wish she could even say that their mother had nagged them on the way they closed their doors once. They weren’t even loud with it! Their ol’ mare just seemed to have a problem with just about everything.
“Starry? You watering or flooding the garden?” Asked Flamey, the name given to Starfire whenever nicknames were ever brought up.
“Oh, sorry…” Starlight couldn’t help but blush as she noticed that she allowed her daydreams to send her into that much of a trance. She focused back on watering the crops, watering each with a gentle swirl.
“I find it funny that you complain about mom’s nagging, but then do exactly what she would tell you to do anyway.” Starfire trotted over to her sister, taking the watering can, sparking just slight protest from Starlight. The flame-named sister would move to water in even lines instead of swirls. She always would complain about efficiency anyway.
This is how life would often turn out in New Canterlot; ever since the shielding happened before either of the sisters were born, there was only ever peace. Some ponies even called the shielding a blessing, protecting their planet from the struggles that often plagued the many systems across the larger Federation. On the other hoof, though, it left much to be yearned for the younger generation born on the planet. Starlight was among the first of this generation, born merely months after the shielding. Starfire was born a year before it happened, not remembering a moment from it.
Later that evening, Starfire and Starlight sat at their small dining table, munching away at a salad that Starlight had put together. Starlight was looking out of the dining room window, a large pane giving a beautiful view of the mountains that were mirrored on all horizons. She, though, was not looking quite at the mountains, but above the high peaks at the space above. The bubbly shield that surrounded their world was omnipresent, but she would often find herself enjoying the act of looking for the flickers and movements of ships that would fly over the planet, sometimes purposely trying to communicate and other times simply seeing what was happening with the inhabitants of the former Federal Bureaucratic Hub.
Tonight was like most other nights in her home region of Northern Umbra, consisting of trademark clear skies and cool breezes. There would be occasional flashes of ships moving and warping to and from orbit, giving Starlight many points to focus on and ponder.
Starfire was not quite as interested in the space above her world, instead completely consumed by a show on the wall-mounted flat-screen opposite their window. To her, New Canterlot, or simply Canterlot, was perfectly fine. Truth be told, the population of New Canterlot was far higher than Old Equus reached before the War of Survival. As a result, she always had ponies to meet, new entertainment to consume, and new ideas to process. Most ponies couldn’t ask for more.
“I’ll be heading to bed in a moment, Starry. Got an early start tomorrow and I don’t want to leave Fresh Story waiting.” Starfire stood up, bringing hers and her sister’s plates to the sink.
Starlight simply nodded, more focused on the activity up there in the sky. The only thing that took her attention away for just a moment was a goodnight nuzzle from her sister, which she reciprocated.
The TV turned off, the room growing silent as Starfire left. The dark of the room allowed Starlight to see the outside more easily, her eyes wandering down to peer around the dark valley. This planet was chosen and named because of its mountains and valleys resembling the area around Canterlot. Though she did see activity up there, it was obviously not a more eventful night.
She went to bed.
Starfire padded across an enchanted road of materials derived from concrete and asphalt before a magical softening spell was applied to it. These roads were some of the few magical parts of New Canterlot left after the shielding, allowing ponies to painlessly trot or gallop for miles across the grand distances of the large planet.
Today, Starfire was going to meet with her boss, a stallion named Fresh Story. They were landscape professionals, and a rich pegasus family hired them to build a terraced garden which would ascend with a staircase that led up to their mountain mansion. They had already scoped the place out, and now was the day for her and Story to direct the ponies around.
To call Starfire passionate was an understatement. Her attention to detail was the main factor behind her boss’ enthusiasm to work with her. She would not hold back any criticism any anypony, even him, and it helped him learn as well as make their work better. Sometimes, the stallion probably even worried that the mare would leave to go on her own venture, but, for some reason, she chose to continue working with him after ample opportunity to diverge.
The busy mare was carefully measuring out a length of hill as her boss arrived shortly after her, several working ponies behind the stallion. She paid little attention to him as she counted out each inch in her head, as if doubting the consistency on the measuring tape itself. It was a good thing that telekinesis was little more than a myth, as entering her mind would most likely end in one’s own mind being crushed under the meticulous pressure of her scrutiny.
“Heya, boss!” She said excitedly, her normal serious, focused demeanor being replaced with one of an excited, attention grabby filly as soon as she saw her good friend come over. “I’ve got this entire strip of hill needing to be leveled. Do we have the equipment?”
“Hey, Fire. The heavy equipment will be here in about an hour. Until then, have ‘em mark anything you need marked and dig out anything you need dug.” The larger stallion gave her a firm nod as she moved over to start issuing commands to the ponies.
Starfire was none against overseeing the ponies assigned to her, giving them the task of preparing clearly marked gouges in the ground around each part of the soon-to-be garden that she would mark.
“I can tell why those pegasi enjoy living up here,” Her unicorn boss said as he walked up beside her while she was just finishing marking the final excavation spot, her attention quickly turning onto the stallion begging her attention.
“Oh, absolutely! I’d live up here if I had the money to pay for the labor required to build a home even a tenth that size up a mountain like this.” She waved her hoof toward the home, a large mansion built with a distinct Canterlot feel. Well, as close as the historians and architects would have gotten to the structure of Canterlot, as the city must have been atleast two millennia gone at this point.
“Well, you might be nearing that amount if we get this build right. They said they would tip half a million credits to the designer if the build lives up to the blueprints we are aiming for.” He grinned as he said this, enjoying the wide eyes of his employee.
Starfire was already putting one-hundred and ten percent into this project, and the commission alone was only twenty thousand credits. With five-hundred thousand, she could move her and her sister up to a mountain home. “Oh, that would be perfect! That… that would be enough for Starlight and me to move up to the Lunar Crown!”
The Lunar Crown was a lovely mountain neighborhood just twenty miles north of their current home, and it was also closer to her boss’ business. She knew that Starlight had been saving for years to be able to get a home up there so that she could really stargaze, but the mare’s profession was recently taken over by artificial intelligence, and this planet didn’t quite have the education programs available in their spacefaring Federation, so she couldn’t easily find a job.
“Then let’s make this one a great success,” said the stallion, who trotted back down the hill to supervise the ascension of the heavy equipment coming up the mountainside.
Back at home, Starlight was busy working on a telescope, trying to insert an old family heirloom into it. The small lens was supposedly passed down from one of the Princesses of old. If she could successfully input the lens into the scope, she should have been able to see through the atmosphere with ease, and hopefully, the shield.
Placing an old book on the table, she went to open the old thing, taking grand care to open it, looking at the symbol on the cover, which was that of a mare’s cutie mark. This was the mark of one of her ancestors, but she didn’t know much more than that. The book was strictly about magic, with only the name of the writer in the back cover: Starlight Glimmer.
Upon opening the book, the mare slowly pushed pages aside for a while, seeing interesting spells and notes about artifacts seen in this mare’s life. She was distracted by a section that consisted of several blank pages that read, ‘For my family,’ but she couldn’t tell whatever this mysterious mare wanted her or her family members to know due to the lack of observable information on the pages.
Finally, she came to a page describing the lens, and with some quick reading and research, learned that the key to putting it inside a telescope was to press it against the outer lens. She was confused at first, but upon following those instructions, the heirloom fused with the outer lens before sinking in and disappearing into the glass itself like a ring melting into a pool of liquid metal.
“That seems waaaaay too easy,” she said to herself as she looked at that outer lens for a little while longer. She proceeded to bring the instrument outside, aiming it up at the blue sky and peering through. It worked! The atmosphere was invisible, allowing her to see the stars, but the shield was still there.
Over the next few hours, she used the telescope to watch the faint lights of ships and such moving around up there in the heavens. She could see the stars much more clearly now, even with the shield, so she took to simply stargazing, looking at the several New Canterlot constellations that she learned of in her early life.
As the day went by, the mare would spend time drawing sketches of what she saw up there. At one point, she thought she could see a ship’s outline, which she had never seen before, so she excitedly sketched out the small oval in as much detail as her eyes could get.
It was in the evening as she looked down toward the horizon. An interesting aspect of the shield around their planet was that it did not seem to rotate with their world, instead simply sitting still, but she knew what she saw just as the sun was beginning to set. This sight caused her to back up from the telescope, right into her sister, who was creeping up to surprise her.
Still attempting the surprise, Starfire failed miserably, Starlight standing in shock at the thoughts going through her head.
“What? Starry, what’s up?” Asked the older sister to her younger.
“There’s a… there’s a crack!”
