Tape 2 - How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the . . .
Author's Note
Well I wish that I could say that, "Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design", but I can't. I never expected the response that the first chapter of this story received. All I can say is thank you to everyone for bearing with me and reading. Hopefully those of you that clicked back onto this story will enjoy this new chapter just as much as many seemed to enjoy the first one.
Tape 2 - How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the . . .
If you want to know what my bargain bin space program looked like in the early days just watch one of those compilation videos of rockets blowing up on the launchpad or immediately after launch. It was certainly a slow start. While I may have the equivalent of decades of experience in the aerospace field, bootstrapping an entire space program from literal moon dust isn’t easy.
First, for all that my transmutation spells have helped make the moon a tad bit more hospitable they are unfortunately not a cure all for my problems. If I had been able to zap a Saturn Five into existence I certainly would have done so.
As I stated before I refined these spells over quite a few years and at first, I was only capable of creating small amounts of basic elements or compounds. Examples include pure oxygen and a handful of other gases to finally give my lungs a break, H2O to give respite to my eternally parched mouth, and metals such as iron to build a basic shelter with. Even simple alloys such as steel were much too complicated at first. But with quite a bit of practice, along with trial and error, I slowly improved. By the time I had finished my ‘humble’ abode I was able to create complex chemical compounds and alloys. I had even figured out how to create entire objects with my spell instead of the base materials.
The only things I have never been able to replicate are any biologicals. Organisms even as small as microbes are just too complicated. This also means that I can’t replicate food other than basic chemical compounds. And let me tell you a goop of ‘nutritious’ compounds are not appetizing in the slightest. The best I have ever gotten is adding simple compounds that relate to spices such as capsaicin. But all that did is make spicy goop, still better than regular goop.
The terrible things that I would do for a juicy burger right now are numerous and unspeakable. On that note my ‘brief’ time as a human may have altered my pallet. I’ll have to find a dealer for meat when I get back, maybe a Griffon.
But I digress, I seem to have gotten a bit off topic there. Nowadays thinking about food seems to do that to me. Like I said before, I eventually learned to create entire semi-complex objects with my spell instead of just basic materials. However, the description power hungry does not do this spell justice. In other words, if I was not an alicorn with the magical strength to quite literally move moons I would never have been able to use these spells. The equation E = mc^2 is a good starting point for the power input needed.
Additionally, note to self: investigate where the energy for this spell comes from in the future back on Equus. For those wondering I currently theorize that ponies and other magical creatures draw upon energy from another universe. Perhaps we tap into another layer of space like the civilizations in Iain M Banks books do.
But I am again getting off topic, my apologies it seems to happen more often these days. I blame the crushing loneliness and isolation myself.
Overall, the point I have been attempting to get to is that using these spells to create complex objects can be exhausting. Just magicking entire rockets into existence was not an option, so I was forced to do it the hard way. As in I built the machines to make more machines and so on until I got to the point where I had rockets. From what I can tell at this point the moon is the most industrialized place in the solar system. At least it seems that way as from what I can tell Equestria, nor any other country or species has industrialized from the total lack of artificial lights illuminating the dark side of the planet.
As I alluded to before, the early days of my space program involved a lot of explosions and very little success. But I persevered through the crushing failure and my devotion eventually paid off with my first successful launch. Thankfully this launch also proved that objects could in fact leave the moon while the Elements curse was active, something that I had not been certain of before and would have posed quite a large problem.
My first attempt at leaving the moon utilized this first successful rocket design, the R-6. I had been so ready to taste freedom, but it was not to be. As I lifted off the surface of the moon at first all was well, but as I gained altitude the rate of acceleration slowed. It slowed until my forward velocity ceased all together. Which for those wondering is a very bad thing in this case. Soon thereafter I found myself hurtling towards back towards the moon’s surface. And for those who are curious, being blown up still hurts as an alicorn. Unfortunately, that would not be the last time I would be granted the pleasure of that particular experience.
While my design was sound, I know because I tripled checked the math afterwards and tested a payload of equal mass to me, the curse of harmony struck again. From what I have pieced together over numerous experiments is that as I ascended from the surface my own mass somehow increased exponentially thus also increasing the pull of gravity. So, a rocket that should have in theory been more than enough to get me off the surface quickly became inadequate in its lifting power.
Of course, my answer to the question of how to solve this problem was simple, bigger boom. So thusly a crusade of development began with ever increasingly larger rockets being designed, built, and destroyed by yours truly. By the end of my development cycle, I had what amounted to a Saturn 5 and in fact exceeded it in lifting capacity. But even that beast of a rocket was brought low by the curse of the Elements.
It was not all for naught, however. While these rockets may have failed, each one did get me further from the surface than the last. But unfortunately, I was nearing the end of what I would consider the ‘tech tree’ for chemically fueled rockets. While I was getting further on each new designs launch the force of gravity amplified by the Elements continued to win.
At this point the situation called for drastic action. Bigger boom had failed, chemical combustion was just insufficient. What I needed was biggest boom. So, in my mind, I dusted off what I knew of an idea that the US Government called project Orion.
The premise was simple use nuclear bombs as your rocket fuel. Crazy sounding at first, and still crazy if executed but the idea was sound. It also had the possibility of solving my little gravity problem by brute forcing my way past it with the huge initial impulse that a nuclear device could provide. The potential downside was that this idea was operating on the assumption that there must be a maximum range of this mass increasing effect that plagued me. If there isn’t I’m basically boned, and I doubt that project Pegasus will work. But one must hope I suppose, I know I certainly do.
While before I perhaps made just building a nuclear weapon sound trivial, let me say from firsthand experience, now twice in fact, that it is not. Working out the entire process from scratch, even from what I knew, was not easy. It was just like the rockets in that aspect. But again, with hard work, sweat, and perhaps a bit of unintentional radiation exposure I was once again successful.
Side note, once again. On the topic of radiation, I have determined that ponies, or at least alicorns are extremely resistant to radiation, even very energetic ionizing radiation. I suppose I should have realized that before panicking the first time I doused myself in gamma rays since I have been living on the moon. Which just like on the earth’s moon has a much higher background radiation due to lack of a magnetosphere. If I was not radiation proof or at least very resistant I would have succumbed to it long ago. In the future I will have to investigate if this applies to all ponies or just alicorns.
Now for the first test detonation of my admittedly simple fission bomb all everyone needs to remember is at this point I was going a bit crazy again from being alone for so long. Not quite pre-Earth levels of crazy but getting close. And when I pressed the button for the detonation of that first bomb, well, I’m not entirely proud of it but I may have begun cackling like a certain Sith lord. The words ‘ultimate power’ may have been uttered, but I did refrain from shooting lightning everywhere so that’s something.
Since the moon doesn’t have an atmosphere the detonation itself was much less visually impressive than one done in atmosphere. There was no fireball or impressive mushroom cloud. There was, however, something even better than that. Something that I had been missing for hundreds of years at this point, sunlight.
Now to help make myself sound slightly less crazy and unhinged you really need to understand where I was coming from before you judge me. Because of the weird orbit of Equus moon I have not seen or felt sunlight since my stint on Earth. It’s been a long time since then, so when I felt the illusion of the sun’s warmth in the form of hard radiation from the detonation, I went a bit funny in the head.
For the next few years, I may have gotten a bit out of hand. A sun-deprived alicorn who was a bit funny in the head mixed in with atom bombs a good combination does not make. Conceivably I may have performed a few more tests than strictly necessary and I may have stood just a bit closer to ground zero than advisable during those tests. A cult of one, worshiping the sun bringing atom was formed for a few years as I built increasingly large bombs just to feel the tingle of sunlight for a bit longer. Quite a few acres on the dark side of the moon have been melted to glass from these efforts. I even got a bit artistic during this phase. There is quite a nice portrait of myself in moon glass now.
But even in that tad bit deranged state of lust for an ever-increasing yield measured in tens of megatons I still worked towards my goal. I finally came to my senses a sort time ago when I realized that I had what I needed, a shaped charge H-bomb.
The rest of my design was trivial with my established manufacturing capability at that point. It was basically just a big ass cannon. If you have ever seen that old silent movie ‘A Trip to the Moon’, it’s just that, but powered with a nuke. As they say keep it simple, stupid.
I suppose that I should wrap up this recording. I believe that I may just be procrastinating at this point, perhaps I am just worried that Pegasus will just be another failure. And if I am being honest, I am not sure I can cope with yet another defeat. That little loss of sanity I had with the nukes was not entirely unexpected and those mental breaks have been becoming more common and more difficult to recover from. If this fails and I lose myself again, I am unsure if there will be any Luna left to arrive back in Equestria.
But hopefully that is just quitters talk and the next time I ‘speak’ to you will be from the surface with real food in hand. This is Commander Luna of moonraker base signing off.
Tape 1 - The Origin Story
Author's Note
Hello all, this will be my first posting to this site and fandom in general. I do not have an editor so there may be grammatical errors as I am certainly not an English major. I will most likely go back and fix these issues if they are major and detract from the story.
As for an update schedule, well . . . there will be none. I am currently in college and writing this in my free time and when I have the motivation to sit in front of a computer and write. So I may post more than one chapter a week and I could go months without. I will certainly not be promising any schedule as I will likely just miss it and annoy everyone.
Additionally this story was partly inspired by The Adventures of the New Nightmare by hmaf43. So go check that one out if you like this one.
Well that's enough of an author's note. I hope that everyone enjoys the story!
Tape 1 - The Origin Story
Let me ask you a question, have you ever wanted to visit the moon?
If you were born any time since the 1950’s, and human of course, I would assume that the answer, at least for most, would be some form of yes.
Well don’t. This place sucks. It’s a desolate wasteland with dust that’s worse for your lungs than asbestos and tends to stick to anything it can like cling wrap. Pair that with the total lack of water or any type of food along with a constant bath of solar and cosmic radiation and you have the perfect vacation destination.
At least if the ‘vacation’ you have in mind is the vacation the people booted from ships onto Australia by the British had.
When my ass got kicked up here, I spent the first year unable to do anything but continuously suffocate, unable to die. I eventually got used to that feeling, something I would never wish on my worst enemy along with the constant thirst and hunger. Now at this point I was still only Luna. Well there was a bit of Nightmare along for the ride as well, but after she had her ass royally kicked by my bitch of a sister after she had been acting even more insane than normal she went mostly dormant.
Now after I got used to my shit accommodations and the constant feeling of dying, yet not being able to I devoted my time to attempting to escape. At the time I had no idea that the cursed spell the elements of harmony placed upon me had a time limit and I quite honestly believed I would be stuck on this godforsaken rock for the rest of time. Due to that after my initial escape attempts using magic failed, I began to attempt more and more drastic measures.
Eventually it got so bad that I resorted to trying to use dream magic to escape. Nightmare even 'woke' up and helped in this endeavor, contributing her knowledge of mental manipulation magic. She was always better at that aspect of mind magic as I usually refused to touch it with a 10ft pole after what Sombra did with it.
Due to this desperation, slight insanity from Nightmare, and the cursed elements of harmonies' spell something went drastically wrong with the Macgyvered dream and mind magic spell. What I had originally been intending to do was cast myself into the mind of one of my loyal thestrals to communicate with them so they could attempt to free me from their end. However, due to Nightmares insistence at escape she threw much more of ourselves, our soul, into the spell than we should have. The elements spell evidently saw this as an attempt to escape, but due to my mastery of the mind arts it was unable to prevent the spell from being cast. But it certainly tried and along with redirecting the spell it scrambled much of it as well.
That was how I found myself being reborn on a quaint little planet called Dirt or rather Earth by its inhabitants many times over. Now at the time in each ‘life’ I had no notion of who I really was and instead lived out each life to the best of that version of me’s ability. Now I suppose that my spell impacted the planet on the North American continent as that’s where I was always born. It started with me being born into various native tribes and eventually into the families of the European settlers when they arrived. Additionally, I was reborn more often the more people there were around, so by the later dates I was on Earth there were hundreds or thousands of copies of myself floating around what was at that point the United States.
Now I did everything from being a hunter and gather, a farmer, a slave, a soldier, a scientist, an engineer, and every other profession under the sun. As you could probably tell some of these lives sucked more than others. However especially as the years crept by and I was finding myself being born in the eras past the 1800’s I tended to find myself gravitating to more scholarly pursuits. I had always been the more studious of the two sisters and loved to learn and improve. Now before my banishment this was primarily in magic but as the humans had none in these new lives I found myself studying and applying the sciences. Now I won’t name specific people, but I was a hand in a fair share of scientific advances throughout history. Hell I even worked with myself unknowingly many times. Additionally, for some reason I also found myself as a politician and leader more times than I would have suspected, perhaps I still gravitate towards leadership even though I have grown to despise it.
Eventually my spell ran out of ‘juice’ and I found myself waking back up in my body. However, this time I woke up with thousands of lifetimes of memories and experiences. I was certainly no longer Luna, but I was also no longer any one of my past lives. Now one benefit of Alicornism is a perfect memory, most likely due to our long lives, so I remembered every single one of my human lives perfectly. Sometimes better than I remembered them while I was in the process of living them. I’ll admit that when I work up, I had a bit of a breakdown for a few months and really didn’t do anything but curl into a ball and lay in the moon dust. It certainly took time to sort myself out, but I eventually pulled myself together.
I may have not been only Luna anymore, but I was certainly still myself. Just a bit older and more lived version. Being a big purple horse again was certainly a bit different though.
One true benefit, other than the new experiences I gained from my botched spell was that I now knew for certain that escape was possible. For you see while I never watched the show myself regularly, I did happen to catch the airing of a certain show called My Little Pony once when doing a solid for a friend and watching his daughter. This happened to be the premier, a two-part episode that focused on little old me.
Now looking back, I have to say that I am a bit offended by how I was presented, but I suppose I would have been pretty crazy after all that time on the moon. Hell by 200 years I was crazy enough to try sending a part of my soul to another body just to escape.
Now some may ask, “Luna how do you know that the show is what is really going to happen?”.
To be honest I don’t. Really the show will never happen as depicted now as after incorporating my new lives my split personality, Nightmare, has been completely subsumed by the rest of me. Yes, somehow, I am actually more mentally stable than I was before thousands of years of experiences were crammed into my brain.
Now back on the topic of escape, I don’t know for sure that the show was accurate. But I can hope at least that it may be what was to occur if I had not cast that ill advised spell. Having hope that I would certainly be able to escape in 300 years was better than having no hope at all. And yes, I was on Earth for about 500 years, the math was a complete bitch to figure out when I came to my senses.
And since then, I have been a little busy. While I have hope that I can escape after a thousand years have passed with ease, it certainly didn’t stop me from trying to get off this rock earlier. While all my magical attempts had been blocked, with my new memories I had many new ideas of possible ways to get myself into orbit.
I developed a whole new branch of transmutation magic with the help of human understanding of nuclear physics and chemistry, so I was eventually able to create elements from the moon dirt as well as chemical compounds.
Now of course the first thing I did with this new skill was build a box and fill it with air so I could finally after another 25 years of continuously suffocating have a breath of fresh air. After that I continued to improve my standard of living, so that even if I was going to be stuck here it could at least be enjoyable.
Now I admit that I may have gotten carried away with using my new skill. The very ‘James Bond villain’ esq moon base I built myself certainly lends weight to that theory. I think it started as a joke in my mind as I was building an abode for myself, as the moon themed villain needs a EVIL moon base of course. But as it came together and I refined my spell enabling me to build more complex technology it started becoming quite comfy. Now I probably spent more time than warranted on the ‘moon base’ but after it was completed no pony could ever claim that I didn’t have the coolest digs in the solar system. And I’ll be honest the place is nice, really nice. Even if I could escape at this point I wouldn’t even mind just living here full time. If anything, else it let me perfect my spell and get better at rebuilding much of the technology that I remember from Earth.
After I finally had a place where I could breathe, drink, and eat I began working on my new escape attempts.
But I think that that’s enough for today. I’ve spent enough time on this recording right now. I still have a lot of preparations to make for the launch of Project Pegasus tomorrow. Commander Luna of Moonraker Base signing off.
