The Solar System

by NoirRukario

Rating: everyone
Tags: Human, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Other
Length: 1239

Twilight Sparkle awakens to some different circumstances.

Herald Smithsonian discovers a strange EM wave.

*--*
Just a story I'm putting out from inside my head. The concept of this is pretty much that I built a story around a non-FTL sci-fi universe. For me, sublight travel and cryogenics make for an incredibly unique universe, because everything would move rather slowly; the economy, war, money, and people, just like sailing ships in the 18th Century.

Will add tags as the story progresses.

Published 2013-01-30 10:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-01-30 10:30:01 UTC

Setting the Clock; a Solar System timeline

For starters, let's set up the Solar System.

Timeline
All dates will be in Earth years.

150,000 BC: Twilight Sparkle, and the rest of the Elements of Harmony, pass away. Princesses Celestia and Luna send their souls into space, forever free.

1957 AD: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first ever manmade satellite; proving that space exploration is possible outside of science fiction.

1959 AD: The Vietnam War starts. The United Nations and the Soviet Bloc are at war.

1969 AD: America lands Apollo 11 on the Moon. The first step into human space exploration.

1975 AD: The Vietnam War ends. North and South Vietnam are united under the Socialist banner.

1976 AD: The first Space Shuttle; the Enterprise is built. A huge leap into human space exploration

1998 AD: The beginning of the construction of the International Space Station; Princesses Celestia and Luna pass away, along with the rest of known Equestrian civilisation. Some ponies fled to distant stars, establishing their own race and culture. Old Equestrian history is lost forever.

2011 AD: The Space Shuttle program is shut down; the last Shuttle Atlantis concluding the Program with its last flight, STS-135.

2065 AD: The first human-applicable cryogenics technology is manufactured in London, England.

2071 AD: Gamma/Nuclear propulsion technology is mastered, proving results massively better than its predecessor; Helium-3.

2142 AD: The United Nations build the Barack Obama Memorial Space Station at Relay Point 7 near Jupiter, increasing the maximum distance one ship can travel. This method, known now as the checkpoint system is used to colonise hundreds of worlds.

2154 AD: Humanity reaches the Perseus Belt of the Milky Way galaxy, finding a dead planet containing the ruins of a mountainside castle. Several fossils of miniature equines is found on the planet, dubbed P3X-481. The tomb and skeletal remains of a ruling figure is found. The ruling figure's skeleton has the proportions of an Arabic Horse, except for the stunted muzzle, and larger eye sockets. Ancient banners with a sun-like motif are found in the tomb, as well.

2267: Humanity colonises half of the entire galaxy, finding allies amongst the Krr'vaah, a quadrupedal race of insect-like creatures who communicate with advanced mathematics via sonar. Herald Smithsonian finds a rogue electromagnetic pulse seemingly roaming around space. He attempts to scan it, and the ship he serves in, the UNS Sol's, systems go haywire.

Author's Note

This chapter is a preface supplementary to the story, which I'll be writing soon.

I might not get around to it, so if this seems good; don't get your hopes up.

2000 Light Years/ Herald's Predicament

Crew log.....eh, I’ll call it a diary.
Diary entry Number 1, Year 2265, Current coordinates, X:763.865 Y:73579.34 Heading: 55.2 Degrees. Closest star: Proxima Centauri.
As far as I can tell, this’ll be a routine transport mission to the Gliese-667 system. The rest of the Sol’s crew is in cryo, leaving me to watch over them. As far as I can tell, It’ll take a good six years before we get to Proxima. It’s nice, having peace and quiet for the five years I’ve been currently watching over the crew. It’s given me time to do things I normally would be court-marshalled doing. I’ve upgraded the sensor algorithm on the onboard scanners. The upped scan range now reaches a up to 50,000 kilometres away. I don’t think Captain Yaar would notice. No one actually tells him about the actual specs of the ship. All he gets to do is name it, and give it a new paint job.
Log end.

Herald Smithsonian sighed. He hadn’t considered making a diary until now. He hoped it would keep him sane. He heard the stories; the (un)fortunate few who were chosen to work the “graveyard” job would go insane after a few years, months even. It would be a shame if it happened to him. Sanity was a valuable commodity in space. Unlike the science-fiction that was said to be the likely future back in the 21st Century, there was no faster-than-light travel. Science proved it impossible (probably until the 30th Century, which was far ahead.).

Still though; even if FTL was impossible, he wished it was real now. That one show he occasionally enjoyed, from the year 1984, Star Trek, which took place in the 23rd Century(which also wasn’t very far.) had FTL, in the form of a “Warp Drive.” Unfortunately, he’d have to be stuck with sitting in a dank little satellite everyone called a “fine starship,” watching the rest of the crew, who were sleeping like rocks while being flash-frozen. It wasn’t fair. Then again, Herald thought, if someone else were in my predicament right now, they’d say that this wasn’t fair. He sighed. All’s fair in Love, War, and Interplanetary spaceflight, I guess. He joked in his head, a short chuckle following after.

Herald entered the observation deck of the giant space station named Sol that was currently hurtling through deep space. The stars hadn’t changed. It looked like they hadn’t moved a parsec. Orion was still in it’s usual spot, watching over Herald like a hawk. Earth, the Sol’s homeworld was far behind them, getting ever farther. Maybe if I jump out the airlock.... Wait. Was that a suicidal thought? Maybe he was going insane. He wanted to go back, back to Earth. He yearned to see the beaches of California, where he was born. He wanted to swim in the cool waters, feel the tide. But it was just too far away. Stop whining. Get back to work. He scolded himself. His PDA beeped quietly. What is it now.....? He thought, pulling out the damned PDA and turning it on. Rogue EM wave? I wonder....

Hastily, the UNSA officer pulled himself along to the sensor deck. He tapped a few screens, and punched in a few commands. This wasn’t going to elude him now.
***
Herald was confused. The EM wave registered normal. Thing was, there was no source. The thing just seemed to be drifting in space, aimless.

BEEP! BEEP!

The two beeps seemed to come from a human interface console to his left. The screen was blank, except for a single word.

HELP.

Herald’s face was now devoid of colour. Did his ship just ask for help? He pulled the HIC’s keyboard over, staring at the screen. He started to type.

>help with?
WHERE AM I
>the UNS Sol.
WHAT’S THAT
>the ship you’re on.
WHAT YEAR IS IT
>2265
…
>who are you?
WHO ARE YOU

The console suddenly blacked out, restarting again. The screen was blank, as it was a few seconds ago. That was strange. The computer’s dialogue didn’t follow the format it was programmed to do. Maybe it was a spook. Herald looked over to the scanner, and the EM wave wasn’t there anymore.

Then, a single line of text appeared on the HIC's screen

TWILIGHT SPARKLE

The two words seemed to make Herald's head throb. It seemed like a name. A strange name, to say the least. He started to type something into the HIC.

>how did you get into my ship?
I DON'T KNOW
>seems like magic.
IT IS
>what do you mean?

This "Twilight Sparkle" spook, or spatial phenomenon seemed sentient.

I CAN USE MAGIC
ALL UNICORNS COULD

Herald was in way too deep now.

Author's Note

Alright guys. First chapter....