Up in a forest near Canterlot, several animals had settled in for the night. Rabbits, birds, and all sorts of non-sapient critters peacefully dreamed. The owls, having finally woken up, began scanning the area.
One of the younger owls admired the magnificent beauty of the stars and the crescent moon. While their fellow owls relied on the sky for navigation, this one saw beauty and interest in what was occurring above.
Unlike most nights, this owl saw a moving star. While the owl knew some stars and other lights move in the sky, this one was moving in an arc and could keep up with the fastest fliers it knew. The owl swore it heard a high pitched sound, not unlike the sounds it occasionally heard from that town from the south. Its older brother knew all about it , and despite mostly staying inside of a library, was pestered by the villagers' insistent canonfire.
The star moved closer and closer. The younger owl pleaded with its elders that the forest must be evacuated. The elder owls scoffed, they all firmly knew stars belong in the sky and not on the ground. The younger owl insisted they look up. When the elders did, it was too late. A great big ball of fire was heading straight towards them.
Sometime later at Canterlot Castle, Princess Celestia was hurriedly looking over her field agent's reports before it was time to begin day court. The Smile intelligence agency was the greatest asset in this day and age. Their mission was two fold, to gather news of Equestrian threats and to help monitor the progress of her most precious pupil. Celestia stared at the page when she finally reached the picture of the scene.
Celestia saw the picture of the blazing fireball and how it engulfed everything in a fifty foot radius.
But not everything does return back from the moon when the spell breaks, Celestia realized. Agent Sweetie Drops described the object embedded at the impact crater as an heavily burned cylindrical capsule easily capable of holding three fully grown mares. While the damage was similar to a presumed long forgotten enemy from Equestria's past, Celestia highly doubted this was the case.
Ten feet from the recovered wreckage was a robotic contraption made from metals not recognized on Equestrian soil. In fact, Celestia remembered reports of a scientist down in Ponyville that had recently petitioned the crown for funds to pursue the practical applications of advanced metallurgy. This pony presented steady and regular progress every moon, and Celestia’s gut instinct was to put him in charge of a project to analyze the robot’s purpose and intentions.
Thankfully everything related to the crash had been stored in containment inside of a private bunker.
“Please send a summons to Professor Time Turner of Ponyville immediately, Miss Inkwell
And please inform him of the situation. His expertise is paramount” , she commanded.
Miss Inkwell sent out that request. After a day exceedingly long day of dealing with petty nobles, Time Turner was brought forth in front of Her Majesty, Princess Celestia. The stallion bowed.
“My liege.”
Princess Celestia motioned for him to rise.
“At ease sir. I am of the understanding that you have created a functional analytical engine?”
Professor Time Turner wiped sweat from his brow. While it is well past the prototype stages, it has not become public knowledge. Rather Time Turner had hoped it would be more thoroughly tested before presenting it to the crown.
“Yes. It is true, my princess. I've only been able to get as far as I can with help from your most faithful student. It is rather embarrassing, but without her magic; I would not have been able to assemble it to the level of precision I wanted.”
Celestia gave a solemn nod of understanding. “Do you feel up to this task though?”
Time Turner nodded. “Yes your majesty. However, and I mean no offense by this, but I feel as though any lab here in Canterlot would not be properly equipped to handle things. Can you discreetly send them to my lab in Ponyville? At least the machine and if something weird happens, send a message through Spike. Twilight's most trusted companion should be able to handle it and I will remember to compensate him well for his time with gems”
Celestia covered her muzzle for a second. “I was about to suggest something similar actually. You will have as many resources as you need from Ponyville to Canterlot at your disposal. Good luck, my little pony”
Time Turner started trotting towards the door and looked back at Princess Celestia. “I won't let you down your majesty”
Within a few days, various bulky packages made their way to Time Turner's home. Some were labeled as something mundane as golf clubs and tents, others were labeled as sculptures. A few passersby gave him odd looks. Pinkie however was secretly hoping his science mojo was going to be used to put together a miniature golf course.
“Don't forget the windmills!” , yelled Pinkie Pie as she pronked away from the exterior of his lab.
He took the packages inside and started sorting everything out. Thankfully there was a color coded guide in the paperwork for what everything actually was. The largest box containing the actual recovered robot, the rest being any chunks of metal or other foreign objects found nearby.
Professor Time Turner looked over the metallic creature in his workshop. Having seen the innards, he turned a loose valve. Oil squirted him in the face as he adjusted a valve. Its design seemed to be influenced by quadrupeds from what Time Turner could gather, but rather than four individual legs; there four crudely fashioned black wheels made from an black elastic material. Those were refilled with air.
At least he could be fairly hopeful that quadrupeds designed it. Poking around inside, he had found a few heavily burnt and cracked pieces of the metal frame which were easily replaced.
“Thank Celestia the main spell matrix board isn't damaged. If that was the case, we’d be a lot more trouble”
Despite the superficial burns to the outer shell, nothing seemed out of place there near as he could tell. “So why aren't you waking up?” , Time Turner quietly mumbled. He went towards the back with one of his specialized voltmeters and hooked it up to the dimly green glowing capsule near the back.
“Hmm…no power. It's worth a shot I suppose” Professor Time Turner had set his equipment to direct small positively charged energy bursts into the back. Within a few short minutes, the machine raised its head.
“Systems online. Begin self-check” the automaton spoke. It's voice was echoey and high pitched, and had a certain calming effect.
Time Turner safely determined the robot was willing to receive voice commands, given it was talking. Finally he would be getting the answers for Princess Celestia.
“What is your mission? Why are you here?” , Time Turner asked while doing his best to not to panic. Deep down inside he was getting ready to shake and scream not unlike a little filly.
“My mission is to gather telemetry on an M class planetoid whose sun is maintaining a steady orbit around the planet. A most unusual phenomenon and breaks every known law of gravitational motion”
Professor Time Turner cocked his head to the side. In all of his years he had known the sun orbits around Equis. It was a universal truth. The princesses always performed this duty and would till the end of time.
The machine proceeded to buzz. “Unlicensed and unauthorized modifications detected to this unit. Warranty now voided. Please vacate the premises so this unit can be deactivated and retrieved by the United States Space Force. Failure to do so in ten hours will result in destruction of everything in a ten mile radius”
Time Turner hurriedly grabbed onto the robot. “Coordinates. Coordinates. Tell me where do I take you? Where do you need to go?”
The robot droned, “Shutting down…”
Spike hurriedly burst into his lab , kicking down his door with a loud bang.
“Okay we have a problem! Celestia keeps hearing a very loud beeping noise and after checking multiple times, it's not one of the castle’s ovens. Something is seriously wrong. Please tell me you know something!?”
Spike jumped up and down clenching his foot. “Ow. Ow. A lot stronger doors here than at Twilight's.”
Professor Time Turner raised an eyebrow and looked at Spike closely.
“I do have a doorbell. I am thankful for your update though. Things had become a little dicey over here…going to need a set of coordinates…from where though?”
Time Turner mumbled letting that thought drift off. He hoped surely these aliens wouldn't be so foolish as to not provide the coordinates somewhere near the robot in the event of a power failure.
“Hey what’s that over there? Looks like there's something under their weirdly shaped hoof” , Spike asked pointing towards the robot.
Time Turner had followed his line of sight and looked closer. Sure enough there was a piece of paper underneath it.
“Let's see here. ‘GMT: 8:00 69°N 42°E. Arrival point: 64°N 42E°’ That's unusual. ”
Time Turner studied the provided map of the crash location for a few seconds and compared it to a globe of Equis. He realized. the latitude and longitude coordinates perfectly lined up,
“That’s it. I know what to do. But we’ll have to hurry. Spike I’ll need you to load the robot onto my tethered aerial reactive dynamic interpersonal shuttle. The big blue thing that looks like an improper bumper car.”
Sure enough there it was. A blue cart with ropes hooked onto wings, and a huge back seat. In the back was a valve in the off position. Spike carefully loaded the robot in the back.
“Okay I don't really understand what's going on here but good luck Doc”
Spike gave a salute.
“Thanks. I'll need it Spike”
Time Turner took a seat in the vehicle and pulled a lever. After a few false starts, it started up and a panel opened up on his roof. With a loud boom, the shuttle headed upwards and towards the original crash site.
In what seemed like no time at all, the shuttle was there. Out in the distance he could see another vehicle coming down vertically from the sky. It bore a picture of a red phoenix on the side. The vehicle slowly opened up and out came from a cyclops clad in a white material and huge boots. After pressing a button a black remote, the cyclops’ ship started glowing.
The robot started vibrating. “Master”
Professor Time Turner watched as his short lived robotic acquaintance approached the silver cyclops with a sigh. In a better world, perhaps he could have learned everything about this automaton and its strange creators. Maybe even with luck, this discovery could have led to a technological revolution in Equestria; and his name would forever be remembered. Alas it wasn't meant to be.
The cyclops entered the strange craft followed by his trusty companion , and with a few sputters ; the craft emitted a steady stream of fire and ascended into the heavens.
