A Tale of Soldiers and Scientists

by ZeroInfinity

Rating: teen
Tags: Comedy, Adventure, Human, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 3252

A unicorn is bored by Equestria. Inspired by action books, he creates a dimensional viewing spell and swaps minds with a guardsman in a gaslamp fantasy dystopia. Shenanigans ensue.

Doctor Tangled Web is a brilliant arcanist. It's just too bad he's so bored.

One day, he creates a spell for dimensional viewing. He searches through dimensions until he finds an interesting one, a steampunk fantasy dystopia (that is not Dishonored). Later, he decides that simply watching the guardsmen and their adventures is not enough.

He's swapping places with one of them. So Doctor Tangled Web, a Canterlot native who moved out, becomes a Senior Materium Defender of London, and must evade detection as long as possible, all while having an enjoyable vacation and climbing the ranks of the esteemed Defenders, the law enforcement of modern Earth.

By contrast, Senior Materium Defender Phillip Johnson finds himself stranded in a colorful land of ponies and friendship, with no oppressive government, no murder investigations and no aetheric amenities. Luckily, Doctor Tangled Web left an extensive library behind, all of which focuses on Phillip Johnson's acclimation while the good doctor is away on vacation. He's got some reading to do, to say the least.

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Yeah, so it's been a year and, in my various misadventures in life, I decided I actually want to create something. I've been assembling bits and pieces of this for some time with the goal of a story in mind, but it wasn't until recently that everything came together just so for this idea to work. I've got someone to prod me if I stop working, someone to edit and somebody to check those pesky facts, though if them or I miss something please tell us. I'll tag stuff as it becomes relevant. Arcanist essentially translates to magical scientists, like Starswirl the Bearded. I actually could not find (and neither could my team) the word for this in My Little Pony, and they seem to think 'arcanist' works fine.

Published 2013-01-14 02:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-01-26 20:22:59 UTC

1: An Improbable Turn of Events

A Tale of Soldiers and Scientists

~~~Chapter 1~~~

~~~~~An Improbable Turn of Events~~~~~

Doctor Tangled Web sat in a chair, sipping coffee and reading his morning paper, as he did every morning. This time though, he was looking for a specific article, an interview of him. He was offhandedly wondering just how much damage control he would have to do when he found it by his picture, that of a gray unicorn with a messy, white mane and a cutie mark of a large number of glimmering threads interwoven haphazardly, fading slowly at the edges.

DR. TANGLED WEB WORKING ON SECRET PROJECT
“IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS” SAYS DR. WEB
I interviewed Dr. Tangled Web, a local arcanist, yesterday about rumors of a new, top secret project he was working on for Princess Celestia. Although the project has “no connection to Princess Celestia,” he is “most certainly working.” He said he will “disclose no details,” but library records show him taking out several advanced theoretical magic textbooks and reserving several basic textbooks for the future. He’s filed for an undisclosed length of absence, too. He hasn’t said what he’s doing, and it doesn’t look like he will any time soon, but we’re watching.

Doctor Web chuckled. Reporters would be reporters. It looked, thankfully, like they hadn’t meddled in his wording too badly. He sipped his coffee, dropped the paper and looked out the window, greeted by the sight of foals playing in the streets. It was the weekend, after all, and this would be when he could get the most work done. He got up and closed the blinds with his magic. No more putting it off. I have to test that spell while I still have vacation time, he thought.

Dr. Web opened the door to his study, and looked around with pride at his work. The room was converted from a simple, relatively small room with a table and some chairs to a magical focal point, and had been covered in sigils and runes, focuses and tuners, all for a single purpose. Escape.

Dr. Web was a skilled arcanist, but he was very bored with humdrum Equestria. Instead, he had taken to looking into other dimensions for more excitement in his life, and he had found one nearly infinitely more exciting that his home.

It was the dimension of one Sir Phillip, Fifth Battalion Senior Materium Defender.

~~~~~***~~~~~

Phillip woke to the sound of his alarm clock whistling loudly. He promptly proceeded to slap the Disable button on his alarm clock, causing the whistling to slowly taper off, then rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

He rolled out of bed and headed to his small fridge, taking out a glass of water he had left in it over night to drink. As he drunk, he looked around his small room. It was the standard room of a guardsman of his station, outfitted with rather old spell heating and cooling matrices, water and a leyline hook, and decorated sparsely with only the essentials.

He opened the door to his wardrobe and pulled out his guardsman’s outfit. It consisted of an armored trenchcoat, thick reinforced flannel pants, leather steel-toed boots, amplification gloves and a thick metal helmet, equipped with HUD and an aethernet suite. He began putting it on, and when he got to the helmet he put it on.

Immediately, the helmet began to speak to him in a calm, female voice. “Phillip Johnson, please repeat the following sentence: The wicked shall be punished by the just defender.”

“The wicked shall be punished by the just defender, yeah yeah,” said Phillip with the ease of a man repeating an action he had done many times before.

“Vocal recognition accepted. Launching suite...” said the helm. Immediately after, health information, leyline levels and an objective appeared on his screen. ‘Report to Mess Hall,’ it said.

“Same as every day, hess, you don’t need to tell me,” he said, before opening his door to the outside world. London greeted him, a bustling place where steam sat in perpetual pallor over the land as the trains and zeppelins moved off in the distance, creating a constant noise. His room was part of a massive collection of them, all housing guardsmen, part of one of their bases in London. The King liked to keep a close watch on all of them, as they were trusted with the business of keeping the civilians in line whenever he made an unpopular decision, which was often.

From raising the taxes to obscene rates to commissioning statues of himself to even rewriting the history books, The King did everything he could to keep in power. Recently he had assembled a large device to prolong his life indefinitely, but that required lots of magical power to run, so the price of energy had risen as energy was ‘donated’ to the government to power the machine. It was going to be busy for a while, that would be sure.

Phillip walked down the stairs to the courtyard, filled with dirt as the grass had been long since combusted for steam to carry the magical current that made this world possible. He opened the door to the mess hall, and was greeted with the few guards up before the sunrise as they ate.

“Hey, Phillip, over here!” called out one, marked by his HUD as Michael, one of his friends. Phillip grabbed some food from the table and headed back over to Michael.

“Gonna be real busy Phil, real busy, and I’m gonna take on as many jobs as I can. I’m thinking I can make Senior like you by the end of the month!” said Michael.

“Yeah, sure,” said Phillip. “And the Commander’s gonna give us all the day off.”

“No, seriously Phil! I think I can make it!” said Michael.

“Alright, and what’ll you do when you do make it, huh?” said Phil. “Do the same thing for marginally more money?”

“No man! Well, yes, but I’ll finally get some respect! I’m tired of being the new guy.”

“And that attitude is going to ensure you stay the new guy.”

“Hey!” said Michael, then they both laughed.

~~~~~***~~~~~

Dr. Web had been watching the whole time. He smiled at the two, glad to see that friendship will persevere even in different dimensions. Well, he thought. Time to test the link and see if it’s stable.

Slowly, Dr. Web funneled his magic through the various runes around him, funneling it slowly into the cafeteria as the two guardsman kept talking. He panned the view over to the table and slowly lifted a pastry, then dropped it.

“Success!” Dr. Web was ecstatic. He had physically affected the world through the dimensional barrier with a spell! Thankfully, nobody noticed the small spectacle. Web ended the viewing spell and levitated a scroll and quill over, beginning to write at a frantic pace as he trotted out the door.

He would make history. Just, of course, after he got back from his vacation.

Author's Note

So, first chapter, and all things considered it's going pretty well. I bounced the concept off of a couple people, there didn't seem to be any dislike or even suggestions beyond specific storywriting elements, so I'll rely on you guys for that. I was thinking about what lingo would come up in such a radically different universe like this, and it was a pretty interesting thought experiment. When I don't plan on explaining lingo later, I'll write what it means and its origin at the bottom over here. This is my second extracurricular story, so, don't be gentle. I will improve via good suggestions, not sugarcoated sweet sweet nothings. I never did understand that.

2: A Time and Place for Everything (And Everyone)

A Tale of Soldiers and Scientists

~~~Chapter 2~~~

~~~~~A Time and Place for Everything (And Everyone)~~~~~

Dr. Web worked late into the night, checking and rechecking calculations to be sure they were correct, creating magic circles and studying his books. Finally, as the moon approached its apex, he had finished.

A large smile broke out across his face. He had a full day tomorrow, and he didn’t want to miss any of it. He laid down in bed, and, in no mood for waiting for sleep to take him, cast a sleep spell on himself.

~~~~~***~~~~~

Phillip calmly walked towards a bar, his HUD flashing ‘break up protest.’ Huh, he thought. This is a funny place for a violent protest.

He motioned to the defenders besides him, and as he took a position to the side of the door they took similar positions. “Jenkins,” he whispered, “what’s it look like in there?”

“They appear to be singing, sir. Singing quite happily, actually. I don’t even see any violence. Still, it is singing, which we all know is a tool of the devil,” he joked as he looked in the window. The singing slowly began to come into focus to Phillip through his helmet. They had just finished one song, and were now starting another.

“Heyyyyyyy, howwwww, hooooooo
Well let me sing a song to you,
A song about the Judds.
They’ll roll out a guillotine,
And with snicks and snacks and thuds!
You’ll have to ‘scape my maritine,
Or rollin’ll be your head!
You won’t say but my oh me,
And then you’ll be dead
Oh yes you’ll have to ‘scape by sea!”

“Hey, they’re singing a song about us!” whispered Michael, none too quietly. “Good to know we have recognition!”

“It doesn’t sound like a patriotic song, Michael, it doesn’t sound like one at all,” replied Phillip.

“Well once me wife and me,
We had a deathly spat.
She’d something she did see,
A very fancy hat!
I’d wake, she’d groan,
I’d dress, she’d cook,
And finally I moan!
Upon you I’d sic a mook!
Well, turns out she took it lit’rally,
So she had called
The Judds! Rilly?
I was quite balled.”

“It’s a drinking song,” said Jenkins. “Is it a good idea to break it up?”

Phillip thought for a moment. “Well, it’s that or face the Court, or even The King. So, given the alternative, yes, it is a good idea.”

“Alright!” Michael said, breaching the door.

“Fuckin’ newbie,” whispered Phillip as they walked in. “Alright people, Court order, no unpatriotic songs. You know the rules. You don’t have to like ‘em, but that doesn’t mean they’re not the rules.”

“Hey!” called one of the patrons. “Who’s the Court to tell us what drinking songs we can and can’t sing!?” A chorus of agreement was heard.

“The Council,” Phillip said, with more venom than strictly needed, “controls everything. You know this, I know this. It’s common knowledge. So sing regular songs, sing patriotic songs, but don’t sing unpatriotic songs. We don’t want to have to crack down on civilians any more than we have to.”

A grumbling mumbling is heard, but they do not restart the song, nor do they continue. We head out of the inn, and, as we walk away, it finally restarts.

“Heyyyyyyy, howwwww, hooooooo...”

“Jenkins, if you will?” Phillip asked.

“Sure thing, Senior,” Jenkins replied, then turned around and coiled a ball of mana in his hand before kicking open the door. “We mean it!”

Loud groans of disagreement are heard, but the singing does not restart that night.

~~~~~***~~~~~

Dr. Web’s alarm clock woke him early in the morning, before the sunrise. He groaned at first, but then realized just what was going to happen today. This was the day he was going to take Phillip’s place.

Dr. Web had really done his research. He made sure to scan every bit of Phillip’s history in his spare time for events that might come up, as well as practice lucid dreaming to get used to a bipedal body, watching history class lectures and in general making sure he would be able to perfectly impersonate Phillip.

He got up out of bed, and quickly trotted back to his study. He’d left notes all over it the previous night, setting up the runes to cast a sleep spell on him just after the spell completed and use the excess magic stored to destroy them, so he could not be followed. It was foolproof.

He cantered over to the center of the circle and sat himself down on a pillow. Last night he had called in his accumulated vacation time, and had stocked up on preserved foods, so Phillip wouldn’t starve, as well as mane and coat dyes and a number of books to help situate him.

He levitated over the first book for him to read, labeled clearly, and set it in front of the pillow where his head would go. He then began to channel the energies of the spell, watching his notes in front of him.

Fully charged, he funneled the energy through the runes around him, and guided it just so to keep it from explosively failing. When he reached the end of the pattern, he held the energy for a moment and then let it go as his surroundings vanished from his sight.

Author's Note

Well, the second chapter. I was planning on getting this out on Wednesday, but I had little free time between my permit test and my level design class, and then I wanted to try Thursday, but I just plain lazy'd out. I finished writing Thursday though, just didn't submit it to my editor. So now you finally have the chapter. Sorry for the wait, with bite-sized chapters like these I should be getting them out faster. Also, if anyone's wondering about the song, I wrote that entirely on my own at 10:00 at night, didn't save it, then rewrote it during the following day. I can post the rest if you guys want later, though.

3: It's True I Must be Going (But I Swear I Won't be Long)

~~~~~A Tale of Soldiers and Scientists~~~~~
~~~~~Chapter 3~~~~~
~~~~~It’s True I Must be Going (But I Swear I Won’t be Long)~~~~~

Phillip slowly began to wake, and immediately he knew something was wrong. For one, he didn’t fall asleep on a pillow on the floor. He also didn’t wake up slowly, after years in the Defenders you learned right quick to get right up when you were needed, or most days before.

The real tip-off, though, was that his he couldn’t feel either of his hands or his feet. In their place, it seemed, were stumps. Adrenaline rushed to his mind, helping to shake off the sleep spell that had been placed earlier.

Let’s see, he thought. Last I remember I had just walked home after dealing with the ‘protest’ at the inn. When I arrived, I got in bed, and now this. Definitely something going on.

He looked about the room he had awoken in, finding it to be a rather messy study with quite low shelves, maybe an elementary school library. Judging by the rather advanced content of the shelves, however, such as books like “Quantum Physics and You,” “The Multi-verse Theories” and “Advanced Magical Theories of Space and Time,” Phillip was sure that it either was not an elementary school library or was the library of an elementary school populated entirely by genius prodigies.

Done with examining his surroundings for the time being, he changed his focus to looking at his body’s injuries, trying to assess the damage. His preliminary checks had shown no bones to be broken and no seriously bleeding wounds, but he had thought that was probably the because of a numbing spell. The truth, however, was much more unorthodox.

When he looked at ‘his’ body, he noticed that it was furry, short and probably quadrupedal, in addition to being quite colorful. Adrenaline began to pump through his body, but he shut it down fairly quickly. Panic and anger would not help him now.

He slowed down a bit, and examined his body. Rather than being human, as he was before, he appeared to be equine in nature. Closer examination revealed that he was gray, with a white mane. If he knew more about equine breeds, he might realize that the body he was now in was not actually terrestrially equine in nature, but the advent of the arcane motor had spelled doom for the horse’s domination of European culture.

He tested the body, in strength of muscle and limit of motion, though endurance would evade him until he had more time. The strength of muscle was less than it should have been, but the flexibility surprised him.

Heh. Mistake right there, giving me something to use to my advantage to escape, he thought. He made a thorough examination of his immediate surroundings, to try and discern drag marks or trace elements of transmutation spells, but he could find none. He did find more than a small amount of Cognition magic and a book titled “Visitor’s Guide to Equestria” with a note attached to it. “Read this first,” it said.

The cognitive magic left no trace in his head, which led him to believe they either had a powerful, skilled Cognitor or they had not modified his mind, either of which was worrying from the degree of other changes. Rather than worry, however, he began to read the book.

The Visitor’s Guide to Equestria
by Parchment Maps

Equestria is a land full of magic, life and wonder. Many first time visitors will find themselves thoroughly confused, and so in this tome I shall endeavor to answer the most common questions.

Many are confused about the ruling body of Equestria. Is it an inherited title? Is it a ruling council? Are the names Celestia and Luna simply honorifics?

No, as a matter of fact. Celestia and Luna are our immortal rulers, working tirelessly since the early days of cooperation between the three tribes to keep the peace and ensure peace and harmony reigned.

Celestia is the alicorn princess of the Sun, and raises it every morning and lowers it every evening. Luna, by contrast, is the alicorn princess of the Moon, and raises her icon every evening and lowers it every morning.

Some races who know little of us may assume that, because Celestia and Luna live forever, they will, or in some cases have, gone mad with power. This is simply untrue.

Celestia and Luna are both benevolent rulers. They may occasionally break down, but it is our duty as citizens of Equestria to help them back up.

Many have made the mistake of thinking that, since we are peaceful, we are weak. This is where the Elements of Harmony come into play.

The Elements of Harmony consist of six mares, each wielding one virtue of Friendship. These virtues consist of Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty, Loyalty and Magic.

Bah, thought Phillip. I have heard better works of fiction from elementary students. He approached the door, stumbling a few times, and pushed down on the bar doorknob with his hoof, opening it. He looked around, having emerged in a small but cozy kitchen, though it was much bigger than what he was used to.

He looked at the blinds, and pulled them down with a hoof while leaning over to see outside. Outside, he could see a handful of small, colorful ponies laughing and frolicking in a field. He watched for a bit, and then went back inside.

Maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t elementary level fiction.