ST: TNG - The Equestrian Universe

by digitalpony

Rating: everyone
Tags: Discord, Princess Celestia, Crossover, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike, Rarity, Other, Fluttershy, Adventure
Length: 5797

TNG/MLP Crossover - When the Enterprise stumbles upon Equestria, what will it mean for both?

In the aftermath of Discord, Equestria becomes accessible to the universe as a whole. When the USS Enterprise stumbles upon them, will they accidentally shatter the peace this world has known?

Published 2012-01-29 21:59:27 UTC
Last updated 2012-02-03 01:54:36 UTC

Prologue & Chapter 1

Prologue

The echoing sound of hooves through the empty halls of her palace began to subside. The Princess watched through the large window overlooking the garden as her six little ponies ran from the castle and towards the complex hedge carvings that made up her maze. At the center of which, they expected to find the Elements of Harmony.

“Oh, my dear, dear Princess”, said a voice behind her, “I’m so surprised – I would never have expected you to actually allow them to run into my trap. Or did you actually not realize?”

The Princess shook her head, multi-hued hair flowing in the wind. “Don’t underestimate them, Discord”, she replied, her voice less stern than it had been moments before. “They’ll figure out your game soon enough, and then your little reign of chaos will be over once again.”

The strange creature that had appeared behind her laughed, delightedly. “Oh, Celestia”, Discord replied, “such faith you have in your little subjects. You so remind me of someone that I know, I really must introduce the two of you. Tell me, how do you feel about Earl Grey tea?”

“What are you talking about, Discord?” asked Celestia. Her eyes glanced, almost unbidden, out the window again. Her ponies were almost at the entrance of the maze. If she could distract Discord long enough, they might even make it into the maze.

Celestia knew, without a doubt, two things. First, she no longer possessed the magical power that would be necessary to hold Discord for as much as a minute. She hadn’t had such power for over a thousand years, since the power of the Elements of Harmony themselves were threatened by the corruption visited upon her sister by the Nightmare. The Elements she and her sister had wielded to seal Discord away were gone – their power shattered when she had turned it against itself. They had, of course, reincarnated – she did not believe anything could forever destroy the power of Harmony. But their power now belonged to Twilight Sparkle and her friends.

Twilight Sparkle was the second thing. Her student was smart, probably the smartest pony of her generation. She might well have been the smartest pony since Star Swirl the Bearded. She was sometimes overly earnest in her attempts to earn Celestia’s approval (never once realizing that she had had that for years, since well before she saved Celestia’s sister), and she certainly was naïve in the ways of the world, but there was nothing she could not figure out. Given enough time, she would surely realize the trick that Discord had played on her. And with her friends, she would find the true hiding place of the Elements and this nightmare would be ended before it truly had a chance to begin.

Celestia’s role in this was simple – delay Discord and give Twilight Sparkle the time she needed. And if there was anything over a thousand years of diplomacy had taught her, it was how to stall for time.

“I was asking about tea, of course”, replied Discord. “Here, let me show you. Tea, earl grey, hot”, he said to the air, even as he snapped his fingers. A tea service appeared on a small table, two steaming cups of tea sitting on it. He picked up one of the porcelain cups, sniffing at it. “Jean Luc swears by it, you know. I do think it’s the only thing the man drinks. Why, I don’t think it was his duty, or his ship, or his crew that drove him to resist the Borg – I think it might well have been the fact that the Borg don’t drink tea.”

Her horn glowed, and the other cup floated up towards her. She sniffed it, once, and then took a sip, appreciating the deep flavor of the tea even as she fervently hoped that it wasn’t poisoned. “I see”, she replied, “It is quite nice. This Jean Luc, is he the one who freed you from your prison? If he’s in Canterlot, we could invite him to tea right now.”

She had never truly understood, but even during Discord’s original reign of terror there were ponies who were willing to throw in their lot with him. Most did it out of terror and the desperate hope that if they appeased this creature enough, he would at least allow them to grow food. Folly, of course, since Discord simply didn’t care about the effects his chaos would have upon the world. A rare few, however, did it out of some belief that Discord was the proper ruler of this world, that chaos was the correct state for Equestria. She had thought that later group was more than a thousand years gone. The presence of Discord in front of her argued otherwise.

“Freed me? Oh no, Celestia, you have your own educational ministry to thank for that. Pro tip, my dear – when you encase an immortal being of impossible power in stone, you might want to consider not making him part of the tour. No, Jean Luc Picard is from out there”, Discord continued, waving his hand vaguely towards the sky, “A place you, of course, know nothing about. You’ve been ever so well isolated, after all. Hmm. You know, I think that it is time that that changed. I think Picard would absolutely love to meet you. And Worf! Oh, I can only imagine the look on his face! I tell you, Celestia, I think this will be better than the time I introduced them to the Borg!”

She glanced again. Her ponies were almost there. She had to stall him for just a few minutes more. “The Borg?” she asked, “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned them. Who are they?”

“Someone you should pray, every night, that I never decide to introduce you to. But the Enterprise.. oh, yes I think-“, he stopped. Celestia’s breath caught in her throat as he looked past her, out the window, towards the palace gardens. “Oh will you look at the time. Good try, Celestia, good try – but I’m afraid your student and her friends have a date with destiny. Arrivederci!”

And with a snap of his fingers and a flash of light, she was alone again.

It’s all up to you now, Twilight. Don’t let Equestria down.

Chapter 1

Captain’s Log, Stardate 44135.4
Having finished our refit in the aftermath of the defense of Earth, Starfleet has dispatched the USS Enterprise to the Khitomer system in order to hold meetings with Federation and Klingon delegates. Starfleet wishes to both brief them on the recent Borg incursion and to reassure them that even with the damage to the Fleet done at Wolf 359, Starfleet is still ready to do its duty and maintain the security of the Federation.

In all honesty – I believe this assignment to be a test. Starfleet wishes to ensure that I have recovered from my recent capture by the Borg. If this is the case, I intend to show them that I have.

“No. Computer, delete last part of entry and save.”

The computer beeped once, as the log entry was accepted and written. Captain Jean Luc Picard reached out and picked up the saucer and cup, turning the chair in his ready room to stare out at the distorted star-lines so emblematic of warp travel. He sipped the tea, running over in his mind the planned itinerary of their time at Khitomer. Meetings with dozens of delegates, going over the sensor data and log entries that Starfleet was willing to release. Going over tactical data. Reassuring everyone that Starfleet was capable of presenting a defense against the Borg that didn’t rely on the Captain of the last remaining ship standing between the Borg and Earth being captured and destroying the Borg from inside out. Not the easiest task for one Jean Luc Picard, but potentially the easiest mission the USS Enterprise had ever been sent on.

Which, of course, only made Picard think of other “simple missions” that the USS Enterprise had set out on, only to find things were never that complicated. For a brief moment, his mind settled on one entity that had been responsible for more than one of those complications. Almost imperceptibly, his hand tightened on the cup. He hoped, very much, not to encounter the entity known as Q anytime soon – he had no faith that he could rely on his normal diplomatic skills in the face of an entity whose irresponsibility had directly led to the death of over eleven thousand Starfleet personnel fighting to stop a single Borg cube from tearing the heart out of the Federation.

His contemplation of that battle, and the personal cost he himself bore from it, was interrupted by the sound of the ship’s comm.

“Riker to Captain Picard. Long range scanners are picking up a subspace disturbance, sir, near to our present course. Request you join us on the Bridge.”

One acknowledgment later and Picard was on his feet, the tea left on his desk, his maudlin thoughts about god-like entities forgotten as he walked out of his ready room and onto the bridge. “Report”, he said, simply, as he crossed to the center, command chair and sat down.

“The disturbance appears to be just off our present course, Captain, bearing 010 mark 045. Scans indicate that it has an approximate radius of 14 billion kilometers”, replied Lieutenant Commander Data from the Ops station.

The radius caught Picard’s attention immediately. He blinked, his head coming up. “14 billion kilometers? Are you sure that’s accurate, Mr. Data?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. 14 billion, 62 million, 212 thousand, 423 kilometers, to be as precise as is possible from this distance.”

“14 billion kilometers?” asked Commander William Riker, “I’ve never heard of a subspace disturbance that large before.”

“Nor have I, Number One. I think we’d best have a look at this. Mr. Worf, inform Starfleet Command we’re going to be running late for our planned arrival. Mr. Crusher, set course for the anomaly, Warp 6.”

“Is that wise, Captain?” asked his ship’s Councilor, Deanna Troi, “We are expected, after all, at Khitomer. Some of those delegates are probably nervous about the ability of Starfleet to meet its commitments.”

Picard paused at this for a moment. “Perhaps so, Councilor”, he replied, finally, “But this shouldn’t take us out of the way too badly. And our primary mission has always been one of discovery – this business with the Borg may have forced us to take our eye off of that for the time being, but it should always remain close in our mind.”

She looked at him, and Picard did not have to be Betazoid to know she was weighing this against his mental and emotional state. Finally, she nodded, “Yes, sir.”

A few short hours later, the Enterprise was holding station in front of a bubble in space. It was large enough to be a wall of darkness in front of them, no curvature evident as far as the eye could see.

“Scans indicate the anomaly is a stable bubble in space, sir, approximately the size of the Sol system. I’m picking up indications of mass inside of it approximately equivalent to a single star, a planet, and a moon”, Data said, tapping in commands to his panel.

Picard stood from his center seat, stepping forward, his eyes intent on the murky darkness of the bubble in front of them. “Mr. Data”, he said, “Are you saying there’s an entire star system hidden away in there?”

“Yes, sir. The universe contained within the bubble seems to obey many of the same physical laws and constants as our own. We could, potentially, attempt to make entry into it by using a modification of our own warp bubble.”

Picard considered this for a moment, his hands going down to his sides. It took him only a moment to come to a decision, an event emphasized as his hands jerked his tunic downwards. “Bridge to Engineering. Geordi, I want you to modify the warp engines so that we can attempt entry into this anomaly. How long would it take you?”

“To be honest, sir”, came the voice of the USS Enterprise’s Chief Engineer, Geordi La Forge, “I’ve been setting up the modifications since Data first completed his scan. We should be ready to go in a minute or two.”

“Good work, Commander”, replied Picard. “Mr. Crusher, as soon as Commander La Forge has the modifications ready, move us into the bubble. Nice and slow, and be ready to pull us out if Mr. Data’s calculations are wrong, and this universe isn’t as compatible with us as we thought.”

“Yes, sir”, replied Wesley Crusher. A moment later, he tapped a command into his panel. The USS Enterprise moved forward, nearly imperceptibly.

The murky wall of the bubble didn’t seem to move – it was already filling the view screen. The only sense that the Enterprise was piercing the wall was a sudden shudder that seemed to continue for several minutes. As the shudder continued, Picard came close to ordering the helm reversed. Just as he was about to give the command, though, the shuddering stopped. The view screen cleared, and what Picard saw next left his breath caught in his throat.

A single planet, blue and green, floating in space. At a guess, Class M – life-supporting, if this universe had the concept of life within it. In orbit around it, a moon much as any planet would have. But further away was a yellow star.

And, if Picard wasn’t wrong, “Mr. Data, is that star orbiting that planet?” he asked.

“Confirmed, sir, the planet seems to be the central point of rotation for this star system”, Data replied.

“How is that even possible?” asked Riker, himself standing and moving forward.

“I can only guess that the particular laws and constants of this universe are such that this is the optimal arrangement of a star and planet system, sir. A more certain determination would be impossible without a more detailed study of the quantum underpinnings of this particular area of space”, Data once again replied.

“So much for Galileo?” asked La Forge as he stepped off of the turbolift and moved to one of the aft stations.

“Indeed. Are our warp engines holding up, Mr. La Forge?” Picard asked.

“Yes, Captain. As long as this particular bubble universe remains stable, we should be able to maintain our own warp field for a week. Any longer and we’d want to get out and give the engines a chance to cool off.”

“Very well, then. Mr. Crusher, take us closer to the planet. Establish a high orbit. I want to see if there’s anything down there.”

Crusher entered the commands, and the USS Enterprise slowly moved through the night, heading towards the planet growing in their view screen.

As the planet grew, Data continued to work at his station. “Sir”, he said, finally, “Scans are picking up life on the planet, as well as what appear to be several towns. I’ve been able to focus visual scans on one particular habitation.”
Picard had, by then, sat back down. “Very well, Mr. Data. On screen.”

The view of the planet on the screen disappeared, replaced with what appeared to be the central square of some sort of rustic village. They could see several of what had to be carts, offering various goods and what Picard assumed to be food. The screen fuzzed for a moment, as Data adjusted the magnification, and then focused on one particular stall. And around it, clearly conversing, some of them clearly exchanging goods were…

“Ponies”, said Worf from his tactical console, a tone of disgust clear in his voice.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“SPIKE!”, came the voice from the balcony. For the third time in the past five minutes, Twilight Sparkle was demanding his presence on the balcony.

“JUST A SECOND!”, the young dragon bellowed back with all the air that his young lungs could manage to carry. He was busy – the six books that he had wrestled down from their various library shelves weren’t light, after all. Twilight, naturally, needed every single one of them immediately. She would, of course, forget to put them away – the best he could really hope for is that she would at least bring them with her when she finally staggered inside to go to sleep.

He juggled the books he was carrying again, trying to find the best way to carry a pile of books taller than he was. After a nervous moment of nearly falling flat on his back, he managed to find an arrangement that would at least allow him to move. Grumbling about his certain future of back problems, he staggered his way out the door to the balcony.

“Here you go, Twilight, I found them all – even the new edition of the Astronomical Astronomer’s Almanac to All Things Astronomy that got here last week from Canterlot… Uh.. Twilight?”, he asked as he dropped the books into a stacked pile next to the table that Twilight had brought out earlier.

The lavender unicorn looked up from where she was slowly clasping her telescope into a new mount, far different from the mount she usually used. Instead of being a simple swivel, the mount looked almost like a V, turned upside down and with the point over one of the legs and pointing down the angle of it. One leg of the V seemed to end in a dial with small, neatly printed white lettering around the rim of it. The other leg was a small metal rod, with two cylinders slipped over it and clamped into place with knobs. The telescope itself was mounted parallel to the leg that had the dial at the end. There was another dial around the place where the telescope was mounted.

The entire assembly glowed with a faint purple aura. Even as he wondered what in the world Twilight had done to her telescope, Spike couldn’t help but be impressed as she used her magic to make tiny, precise changes to the dials. Most unicorns could levitate objects and adjust them - pretty much every special talent required the ability to manipulate something, after all. The number who could manipulate the telescope like Twilight was doing was much, much smaller – especially when, at the same time, she was calling for her number one assistant to get his dragon tail outside with her books.

And, of course, if I point out how amazing what she’s doing is, she’ll insist that any Unicorn could do the same thing, Spike thought to himself, with a smile. Twilight Sparkle would be Twilight Sparkle – and that was why Spike loved being her number one assistant, back pain or none.

“Yes, Spike?”, Twilight asked, even as she levitated the top book from the stack and opened it to a particular page. She read off a pair of numbers from the book, and started moving the telescope even more carefully.

“What did you do to your telescope?”

“What..? Oh, you mean the mount! Do you remember when I stopped off at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns on the way back from Canterlot last week?” she asked.

He nodded to her, and she continued, “This was a birthday present to me from my old Astronomy professor. They call it an equatorial mount – it lets me point the telescope at a very exact point in the sky. And then I can use just a little bit of magic, and the mount will move the telescope along the track of a particular object in the sky, all night long! Isn’t it amazing?”

“Uh… yes?” he replied, trying for the answer that would satisfy her, without betraying the fact he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. “So.. you can look at the same thing all night long? That sounds.. fun?”

His sarcasm was absolutely lost on her, “I know! And that’s not all! I can hook the camera we bought last year to the telescope, and get very long exposures. It’ll let me take pictures of things I couldn’t ever get a good picture of before! I’ve got it pointed at a nebula right now – I’ll be able to get a shot clear enough to let me count the number of stars in it! That’ll be just what I need for my report on nebulae that’s due next week – I’ll be sure to impress the Princess with it!”

Spike decided that it probably wasn’t the best time to point out that, after having saved Equestria twice, she could probably write “Stars are bright” on a report and Princess Celestia would still be impressed. Worried about her best student, but impressed nonetheless. This would be about as effective as it had been the last time he had pointed it out. At least this time she wasn’t likely to cause a riot. “That’s great!” he said, instead, “So how can I help?”

She smiled at him. “Well, I need someone I can trust to watch this telescope while I go to the basement and get the camera. Someone who can make sure this telescope doesn’t move a single inch. I think it’s a job for my Number One Assistant, in fact – what do you think?”

He grinned back. All her eccentricities aside, Twilight Sparkle was the closest thing he had to a sister. She was his sister, for all intents and purposes. There were very few things he wanted more than to be there for her and to be as valuable to her as he could be. “You know it!” he replied back, giving her a thumbs up.

And, with that, she was gone back into the library. Spike leaned back against the low railing of the balcony as he watched the telescope. Occasionally, he glanced up into the sky. Both because the view was amazing, and because he was waiting to save the telescope from the only thing he figured could possibly happen. Crash landing pegasi had, after all, been nearly a daily occurrence since the two of them had moved to Ponyville.

Pegasi, though, were not in the forecast for the evening. Instead, he was treated to the most beautiful grunts he had ever heard. His gaze trailed downwards from the balcony to the graceful figure of a white unicorn struggling forward as she tried to move a cart filled with the supplies of her trade through a road still muddy from the afternoon’s rain. “Rarity?”, he called, “What are you doing out so late?”

The unicorn jumped, as if surprised. The motion sent one of her hooves slipping in the mud, which led to her stumbling and ended with a sizable splash of mud against her coat. “Oh, Spike! I didn’t expect you to be up this late, is Twilight doing another all-nighter?”, she asked, only after spending a moment forcing down the unladylike squeal of panic that had been building in her throat. This was, after all, hardly the grade of mud that she would ever let linger on her coat.

“Yeah, she’s got some sort of.. uhm.. thing”, Spike replied, trying and failing to remember what in the world the mount was called, “She’ll be out here all night, probably. What about you, what are you doing out so late?”

Rarity hmphed, “I get back home after going all the way across Ponyville to pick up Sweetie Belle from Applejack’s farm, only to find out that that dreadful post-pony had left another yellow slip on my door. I had to go pick up my delivery of supplies from Canterlot tonight, or they were going to send them back! Can you imagine, they were just going to send them back! It would have been the worst possible thing, I would never have gotten my new orders done on time if I had had to wait for more supplies to get here. I just forgot how terrible this path gets when it rains. And, really, Rainbow Dash went overboard this time with that storm! Oh and now I’m stuck! Whatever shall I do?!”

In the back of Spike’s mind, a small voice reminded him that he was supposed to watch this telescope for Twilight. That voice, however, was vastly and totally overwhelmed by the joy the thought of being helpful for his crush was bringing him. “Well..”, he said, “I could help you get your cart home. You know.. if you needed the help..?”

The unicorn practically squealed with delight, “Oh, Spikey-wikey! Would you really do that for me? I know you must be tired, it is awfully late after all.”

“No problem at all, my sweet Rarity”, he called back, “I’ll be right down!”

He didn’t wait for her response, having already turned to rush back into the library. In his rush to get downstairs, he also didn’t pay close enough attention to where his tail was. If he had, he would have noticed it nudge one of the legs of the telescope just enough to shift it six inches. Instead of where Twilight Sparkle had spent three hours pointing it, it was now pointed at an empty, innocuous piece of sky. Spike didn’t realize it then, and he didn’t realize it three hours later when he finally arrived home, to find that Twilight was still outside on the balcony. He didn’t think anything of it, too exhausted at that point to do anything but fall into his bed with his apple blanket and fall fast asleep.

“Are you sure that Twilight won’t mind us dropping in?”, asked the shy, bright yellow pegasus pony as she and Rarity made their way through the center of Ponyville towards the library.

“Oh, darling, of course not! Why would she possibly object to an offer to go out to the spa with us? She seemed to have so much fun the last time she went with us, after all!”, replied Rarity, for a moment looking utterly confused as to why anyone would not want to spend as much time as they possibly could at the spa.

“Uhm, well, she might be busy with her studies for the Princess?”, replied Fluttershy. She came close to pointing out that the last time they had been there with Twilight the two of them had driven her nearly insane with the need to keep their secrets. For some reason that Fluttershy had never quite figured out, Twilight had never looked at a mirror the same way after that mess.

“Oh, Fluttershy! That’s simply too much! You know her studies for the Princess are the study of friendship, after all. What could be more... friendshippy than three young mares heading out to the spa to ensure that they look fabulous?”

Fortunately, the need for Fluttershy to reply to her friend was obviated by the fact they had arrived at the front door of the library. The closed front door of the library, where all the curtains were also drawn. Fluttershy was about to suggest that Twilight was still asleep and they should move on, before Rarity had reared up on her hind hooves and began knocking on the library door. “Twilight!”, she called, “Twilight, are you in there?”

There was a long enough pause before the library door was finally flung open. Instead of a purple bookworm, though, Spike stood in front of the door, clearly wiping sleep out of his eyes. “Oh, hey there Fluttershy. Hi, Rarity”, he said, suppressing a yawn, “Sorry - Twilight didn’t get me up this morning, and I slept in. What brings you here?”

“Oh well, Spike”, replied Rarity, “I know that I stole Twilight’s number one assistant last night, and I was just feeling awful about it - I mean, I imagine that she was planning on a busy night of stargazing and that you would have just been indispensable for it. And then Fluttershy came around the Boutique for our weekly spa day, and it hit me - I should invite Twilight along! Oh, and you of course - I know you don’t like the spa very much, but we could always pick you up some gemstones for a snack. What do you say?”

Spike glanced back inside the library for a moment and then shook his head, “Gosh, I’m sure Twilight would love to, but I’m not entirely sure what she’s doing. She wasn’t in bed when I came home last night, and when I woke up this morning she was down in the dark room in the basement. I knocked a couple of times, but she told me to go away and come back later. She sounded really frazzled too.”

Fluttershy frowned at this, lifting off the ground so that she could glance over Spike’s shoulder. “Oh my”, she replied, “You don’t think its something like the last time, do you? She isn’t late on something for the Princess, is she?”

Spike shook his head, “No, I don’t think its that. I’ve known Twilight a long time - this doesn’t feel like she’s over-stressing about something. It feels more like she’s found something intellectual to puzzle through. Occasionally, she’ll find something like that and then she’ll be out of it for days. It hasn’t happened at all since she came to Ponyville, though.” He neglected to mention that this was mostly because in Ponyville, unlike Canterlot, Twilight Sparkle had friends who would distract her from such.

“Hmm. Well if this is something to do with her studies, then perhaps we should leave her to it. Come along, Fluttershy, we’ll stop by - “, Rarity started. It was a sentence she never had a chance to finish, however, as at that moment the basement door was flung open.

Twilight Sparkle rushed up the stairs into the main room. It was immediately evident that she hadn’t slept the night before. Her mane was ragged, her eyes a bit bloodshot, her smile just the wrong side of frantic. “There you are Spike! I have a letter I need you to send to the Princess right away - its very important that she reads it just as soon as she can”, she said, heedless of her friends standing in the doorway.

Friends who, a moment later, were not in the doorway but were instead in the library. “Twilight?” asked Fluttershy, “Is everything okay? You don’t look so good.”

Twilight, who had been making a dash towards where she saw Spike, her horn aglow as it levitated a single page and what looked like several photographs, turned at the voice. “Oh, Fluttershy, Rarity! Hello there, I didn’t hear you come in. Yes, everything is fine. I found something amazing last night with my telescope, though, and I think the Princess is going to want to see this right away!”

“Your telescope?”, asked Rarity, “Oh then you had a good night, even though I made off with Spike? I’m so glad to hear that!”

“Yes - when I came up and Spike was gone, I figured he had gone to sleep. But then I noticed that my telescope was a good six inches off of where I had pointed it”, Twilight said, sparing a moment to give Spike a glare that turned the young dragon’s cheeks red as he suddenly recalled his tail brushing against something in his rush to meet with Rarity. “But it turned out alright - what I found was something even better than a nebula. You have to see this, girls!”

And with that her magic took the photos, separating them from the letter and holding them up for inspection. Neither Rarity, nor Fluttershy were in any way knowledgeable about astronomy, except for the fact that shooting stars were quite pretty. It was immediately evident, however, that something was strange in this photo.Drifting in front of the stars in the sky, was something most certainly not a star. It was fuzzy, but evident, that there were two shapes, attached to each other in some manner that neither of them could make out - a disk of some sort attached to what looked like an oval that had been flattened on two sides. This was, in turn, attached to two long, narrow objects on either side, that extended about half the length of the entire thing.

“Wh-what is it?”, asked Fluttershy, still hovering closer to get a good look.

“I don’t know!”, replied Twilight, getting more excited as she shared her discovery with her friend, “What I do know is that it has to be very, very close to Equestria - possibly even orbiting the planet! Once I saw it the first time, I moved my telescope to two different points in town and used its shift in position to get a rough triangulation as to its distance away from us. It is, at most, the distance of the moon!”

“The moon?”, asked Rarity, “Could it be.. some sort of asteroid?”

“No”, Twilight replied again, shaking her head, “I know you can’t see it in this photo, but I saw lights on it. Blinking lights, going in a pattern. And the shape of it is too regular to be some sort of natural object. No.. I think this is some sort of ship! Flying out much, much higher than any pegasus could ever hope to go! That’s why I need to get this letter to the Princess right away - she has to know about this!”

“Oh.. my”, was the only reply that Fluttershy could give to this.

The letter itself was quickly bundled up, tied with a small cord, and dispatched to Canterlot in a flash of green, magic dragon-fire. While they waited, Spike brewed a pot of coffee for Twilight, commenting on just how much coffee she had drank the previous night. The pot didn’t get a chance to finish brewing before, with a loud belch, Princess Celestia’s reply came back.

My faithful student,

This discovery is amazing. I need you to come to Canterlot immediately so that we can discuss it. Please bring any other pictures that you may have taken with you. You may, of course, bring your friends. For the sake of preventing a panic, however, I must ask that you tell no one else besides myself, Princess Luna, Spike, or your friends of your discovery until we have a chance to meet.

Sincerely,

Princess Celestia

“Do you know what this means?”, asked Twilight, looking up, her face a little pale at this point.

“Why, of course I know what it means!”, replies Rarity, “We’re going to Canterlot!”