My Little Aurora

So yeah, idea I've had bouncing around in my head for a while. A fanfic set within the Auroraverse, with a blend of MLPhysics and Starfire physics, in which a human fleet fleeing a myriad of enemies and a collapsing empire programs a dogleg course through the y-plane of the galaxy (i.e. 'above' the main horizontal plane') in hyperspace, and then go into cryosleep to wait out the trip. So basically a worldship with battleship-sized parasites and a bunch of loaded T-N installations shows up in Equestrian orbit, makes contact, and the story proper follows the mane six, the Princesses, a few other ponies, and some of the human OCs as they work to turn Equestria into a proper T-N power. Including, of course, plenty of fighting with Swarm, NPRs, and other spoilers.

It wouldn't be an AAR, but I would probably be pulling elements from scenarios within my own games, as well as crossreferencing within an alltech test game to be sure I get numbers right. This isn't something I'd be doing in the near future, as I've got too much nominally important crap to deal with, as well as an existing fanfic that I'm going to be cutting the middle out of so it actually ends. This is more just to test the waters.


For those of you who don't know what Aurora is, Rainbow Dash is disappoint.

Hate to say it, but considering the lack of large cities (if episode 1 is anything to go by, even Canterlot looks kinda like a walled garden with a couple large towers) the first priority of the humans is going to involve booze, relationship building and Marvin Gaye.

Also, I would probably participate, but I've still got a little schooling left, plus my mind is still all over my own fic.

I'm sure you mean rum, bum, and the concertina.

Well, we can make up tons of 'large' cities... my question is... will the other races be represented in any way? Or will the pony and human super alliance leadership try to keep the dealings only pony-human? 'Pliable and willing work force that mostly likes working... unlike the other races.'

I typically place Manehattan, Fillydelphia, and a few others as 'large' (several million) cities, and Canterlot as around 500,000, which is still on the small side for a civilization with large agricultural surpluses, good medicine, and no war/little violent crime. There were preclassical Chinese cities with populations >1m. For that matter, an infusion of T-N industry would radically boost population limits.

As for other races, I would likely have the griffons and zebra align in a federation of sorts with the ponies, because they would all have secondhand knowledge of the threats out there. Keep in mind that this is also working off of the assumption that the Swarm are widespread enough to have large numbers of Hives through both arms of the galaxy, making the threat very near to hand.



Between ponies, zebras, griffons, and around 20m human personnel (both ship crews and colonists), I can see a population base of around 350m to begin with, which would likely be encouraged to grow rapidly. The basic structure would be a four-way federated system under the direct rule of Celestia and Luna, with each of the three Equestrian species, and human settlers on, say, a moon, or another planet, etc. The human level of tech would be around mid-game, but would have degraded significantly over the long travel time, and they wouldn't be able to replicate more than around Ion drives (i.e. basic tech levels) with what they have.

So cause of 'tech' ponies/zebras/griffins all suddenly got it on more often? At least the ponies have been in a relatively death free environment... So advancement in zebra quality of life and for griffins, quality of life and medicine.

Equestria has no initial compulsion to fear the swarm... much less even know of its existence, unless plot device introduces light/scouting party level of hostile swarm activity on Equestria as they strip mine resources... and probably living stuff too...

Zangi wrote:So cause of 'tech' ponies/zebras/griffins all suddenly got it on more often? At least the ponies have been in a relatively death free environment... So advancement in zebra quality of life and for griffins, quality of life and medicine.

Equestria has no initial compulsion to fear the swarm... much less even know of its existence, unless plot device introduces light/scouting party level of hostile swarm activity on Equestria as they strip mine resources... and probably living stuff too...

Remember that there are millions of humans still alive in cryosleep that'll be defrosted by their flight programs once they arrive at their destination, including hundreds of thousands of frontline naval personnel, so there are more than enough firsthand accounts of Swarm activity, not to mention the existence of other, more dangerous spoilers. Given that communication can usually be opened with NPRs inside of a few months (which would imply both substantial diplomatic skill and great translation programs), and that the ponies would be likely be eager to communicate and could probably devise translation spells for terran Standard (or just translate by hand and experience), it shouldn't be long before the ponies figure out what is going on. Celestia at the very least would realize that there are serious dangers present within the galaxy (if she didn't already).

I think that, if griffon and zebra rulers couldn't be convinced of the dangers, at the very least they would be willing to merge into a single government for a share in the advantages of T-N technology. Keep in mind as well that for Celestia, there really wouldn't be much choice about militarizing their world, because, despite being either a living goddess, an immortal, or an incredibly powerful mage/psyker, she can't even deal with malicious minor transcended beings (NMM, Discord) without the use of special power amplifiers. At the very least, the simple presence of millions of individuals from a high-tech, highly threatened society with a penchant for discovery would spur Equestrian development as well, as there are too many for Celestia to hide away, they are hundreds of years away from a home that has almost certainly been destroyed, and Celestia probably wouldn't resort to killing them, even if she could successfully do so while also defending against retalitory orbital bombardment.


And that completely discounts the possibility of me throwing in some sort of abomination or cosmic horror, just for shits and giggles. Either way, if it does get written, it won't happen for a long time, so I've got more than enough opportunity to bounce ideas off of my internal editor.

And ah, forgot about the cyro humans, they are pretty durn good at being bunnies sometimes...

Wouldn't the ponies/Celestia at least be somewhat skeptical? At least to the threats? They've been here all this time and nothing of the sort has come to their side of the galaxy. For all they know, they could be running from other humans. And history... it could be fabricated, but I suppose most ponies wouldn't know that...

Or I guess... are you trying to stay away from a 'internal threats' thing and keep that simple?

Aurora had always struck me as a particularly infuriating kind of spreadsheet simulator - just detailed enough to be interesting, just complex enough to be annoying, just badly enough designed to not want to play it, and just awesome enough to keep thinking about it. It's like a sudden inexplicable desire to fiercely cuddle a cute large hedgehog.

In regards to ponies, I'd personally prefer a situation where a colony/warship simply crashes onto Equestria, simultaneously eliminating the possibility of a cover-up, giving ponies a glimpse of high technology, and, through a few survivors, alerting them of the dangers that are very suddenly, and only partly by the humans' fault, now aware of Equestria's existence. Perhaps I'm partial to this scenario because it's the background to the humans becoming a space power in the Remember Tomorrow game (no points lost if you've never heard of it, but I've mentioned it plenty of times back on Bay12), where they have a Magelaan cruiser crashing onto the Earth after a battle with a Sharatar warship in nearby space. Sharatar lost the fight, but the Magelaan won only barely, and the ship mostly just crashed, with no survivors, leaving only advanced tech and a vague warning for the humans to dwell on.

Yeah, I'd stay away from internal conflict, for a number of reasons. For me, Aurora manages to be fun enough to offset the annoyances, but that could just be because I already enjoy Weber as a source of soft SF.

As for first-contact: It'll still be fairly high-profile (atmospheric reentry in a 1,000 ton vessel isn't exactly silent or invisible), and the way I've got the basic structure set up, a collision wouldn't be possible, both because of the semisentient AI running the flight in H-space, and because if the ship itself crashed, it would be an extinction-level event, because it is a 50m ton+ worldship. As it stands, though, the centuries-long flight will have depleted the maint. supplies, so the ship and all its attendant parasites are going to be in incredibly crappy condition. So it might open with something like the small part of the human crew who were automatically woken having to go to Equestria to beg for assistance because the life support had already pretty much failed, and could only support a few thousand individuals.

Heres the thing, how would ponies be able to help? MostAll of them have never seen technology of that level.

Ponies I guess, could help evac... but seeing as there are millions of humans... and it can now only support a few thousand? The logistical nightmare of coordinating such an evac would be... catastrophic. It would take days if not weeks to move that many refugees... The confusion and chaos would be epic. Also, moving food from who knows where to keep that many people fed...


And meh, the pop-up bug that doesn't go away once I get it is what keeps me from playing Aurora for too long.

Celestia and Luna (seem to) control the Sun and the Moon. Now, how the hell they manage it is anyone's guess, but I do believe that moving a mere worldship would be trivial (okay, not quite, but still easier) in comparison. So, Celestia, Luna, Twilight, and a dozen/hundred of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria get their act together and lower the whole thing gently into wherever it would be safe for it to be, probably a nearby sea. The cause for such an act would be apparent - a gigantic metal rock just hanging above everyone's heads isn't a very good thing to have, plus it's filled with actual living creatures (not living at the moment, exactly, but close enough), and having it on the surface will allow the technological assimilation to occur at a quicker and more comfortable pace, which would be important if the dangers described are as immediate as they seem.

I would presume that for all of this, Equestria will strive to remain a largely peaceful nation. Ponies with natural magical abilities and nature affinity will be a great asset to military and colonization efforts, but the core of the space force would still be formed with humans. Any ponies participating would be volunteers, with Equestria having no dedicated attack force of its own. An accurate phrase to describe the diplomatic relations could be "You want us to help you? We will. You have no more world of your own? We will accept you. You need our skills and resources to defend yourselves? We will give them. You want us to be your allies? We will be your friends. But our nation will not fight this war for yours." I can easily imagine many hundreds, even thousands of ponies going to this war of their own accord, but I do not think Celestia would employ drafting or somesuch. It just doesn't seem... in-character? Seems to go against the whole "harmony" thing. It is one thing to rise up to defend your home against monsters, and another entirely to muster an aggressive force to attack someone across the galaxy. I don't know, I think I lost the train of thought somewhere around...eh, 2AM.

Keep in mind that (for my purposes) anything larger than a FAC isn't capable of atmospheric flight, and the simple strain of lowering it, however gently, would likely tear the ship apart. If the ship is in a stable orbit (or better yet, halted at a Lagrange point), there is no reason to put any more stress on it. And there wouldn't be any purpose to waking any of the 50+m humans that aren't necessary for operations, as their cryopods can support them forever (for all practical purposes).


So basically, you've got a few thousand awake humans, a few top Equestrians who know exactly what is going on, the foundation for a T-N colony, a large fleet of support vessels and warships that have been maintained perfectly (thanks to Aurora's hanger mechanics), and not much urgency beyond human warnings. At least, not until some random carnivore NPR decides to land a few battalions and chow down (or similar).

I'd figure the Star Swarm would be the best 'wake up call'. They seem to be the sort to strip mine all resources. And wouldn't be far-fetched for them to either assimilate or basically take apart living things for whatever little resources their bodies may hold. (Eat.) A geological survey force from the Star Swarm.... looking for the next galaxy to stripmine... Or the HFS of Aurora.
It'd obviously be a good launching point for internal conflict: "You brought them here!" But yea, I guess you can just skip over it and say everyone united and decided to work together in harmony...

Griffins probably would be happy enough being a part of the 'aggressive' expansion. Zebras, they might go along with it.

I'm thinking that griffons (and probably pegasi) would be ideal fighter pilots. And yeah, Star Swarm would be a good way to start it, but only a single hive. Spoilers would be a bit much, as they'd just plaster the planet with plasma torps before anyone could do anything. The zebras would likely be the source of any potential research on genetic modification, prolong, etc., once they got access to human medical research and extrapolated to apply it to ungulates.