Master Engineer Kreme-Brulee and the directors of the Equestrian Air Navigation Company cordially invite the General Public to attend upon next week’s launching of the AS Great Equestrian, largest Skyliner in the world, at the Geordie Lamp Shipyards, Baltimare. Luncheon to follow.

Equestrian Air Navigation – by Royal Appointment. Praise Her Unconquered Sun!

A clipping of an announcement placed in the Baltimare Halcyon newspaper, one week before the CERN incident. This particular clipping is attached to a hoofwritten note: ‘Please Come, Son’.

Duplicated here by kind permission of the Mouscadet Family of Rainbow Falls, who hold the originals.

*

“The Europeans came first, and took without asking. In their arrogance, they thought of themselves as superiors, civilised and enlightened compared to us poor, misguided savages. Our ancestors bent knee and head in subjugation, when confronted with annihilation. We steeled ourselves, and in rafts and canoes crafted of words and prayer, salvaged the remnants of our culture from the white flood. The Creator wept for us, and wept even more for the evil in the hearts of men. We endured, and remain. Generations later, many of us have forgiven, but not forgotten, those times of tribulation.

But today, we are all of us threatened with destruction. An eradication as thorough and complete as to wipe all of us ‘poor, misguided, savages’ from the face of existence, so that not even one man and one woman might remain. Today, the creator weeps for all of us, as we raise our fists in rage at she who has perverted the warmth of His sun.

Peoples of the Nations, I implore you to cast off the evil within, the hatreds and scars of the past, and destroy the evil without. Without this resolve, all humanity will fall. This time, none must submit to those who declare themselves our betters.”

An address to the Assembly of First Nations by Author Sanipass, Mi’kmaq chieftain of the Eel River Bar Band of New Brunswick. Seven minutes after this televised address, the gathered representatives were overwhelmed by a PER potion-bombing attack. Sanipass himself is suspected to have been the original identity of ‘Loving Sun’, an infamous newfoal evangelist killed in the Battle of Millers Falls.

*

Hi sis! It’s Pinkie Pie here, but you totally knew it was me, didn’t you! Things are really super here in Canterlot now, and everypony’s working really hard to help those icky humans. You should awesomely come and visit me, wouldn’t that be amarezing! I knew I was a Meanie party-poo about Her Majesty’s plans, but I’m all happy-dappy Better Now. Everything Better. Everypony Better, yes! Please come. I miss you. Please come. Please. Rock Candy fun? Funfun! Yaaaaaaaay!

An unposted note liberated from the Solar Empire’s archives by the Blue Spy. The parchment sheet on which it is written has apparently been scrunched up and flattened out numerous times. Despite the erratic wording, the mouthwriting is methodical and almost mechanical. Analysis indicates splatter-pattern markings on the sheet to be tears. Scribbled in a linguistic scream across the whole of the page, in pink crayon, are the words ‘RUN AWAY!’

*

“The last invasion of the British Isles was in 1797, when a contingent of French Napoleonic troops landed at Carregwastad Head, here in Wales. A dismal failure, it was routed and broken within days, the invaders often being captured by local civilians without shots being fired. Local legend maintains that many of the soldiers, seeing Welsh housewifes approaching in their traditional attire of red cloaks and tall black hats, mistook them for reinforcements from the Grenadier Guards and laid down their arms in surrender…

...that’s what they taught us in school, and now I’m standing here on this ferry, watching as Carregwastad Head is swallowed by the Barrier, and I can’t cry! Mum, Dad, Samantha...Prince and Taliesin and David Lloyd George...they’re all gone. All Wales, all Britain, gone! And I can’t cry! Why can’t I cry!”

First entry in a lengthy collection of audio diaries, stored on an external hard-drive discovered hidden aboard train CPX-9782, the last railroad consist to successfully flee Nova Scotia.

*

“With my lovely blue streamlined engine ‘Mallard’, we drew away from Grantham. I accelerated up the bank to Stoke Summit, and passed Stoke Box at eighty-five.

Once over the top I gave ‘Mallard’ her head, and she just jumped to it like a live thing. Then, hundred-and-eight, hundred-and-nine, hundred-and-ten.

‘Go on old girl’, I thought. ‘You can do better than this’, so I nursed her, and shot through Little Bytham at a-hundred-and-twenty-three.

And in the next one-and-a-quarter miles, the needle crept up further. One-hundred-and-twenty-three an hour, hundred-and-twenty-four, hundred-and-twenty-five...
And then, for a quarter of a mile, while they tell me the folks in the car held their breaths, one-hundred-and-twenty-six miles per hour.

One-hundred-and-twenty-six!? That was the fastest speed a steam locomotive had ever been driven in the world…”

An interview with driver Joseph ‘Joe’ Duddington, the railwayman who in July 1938 set the world speed record for steam traction: 126mph.

This record still stood at the time of the Barrier’s conquest of Europe, during which Duddington’s ‘lovely blue streamlined engine’, preserved as a museum-piece, was ruthlessly destroyed along with countless other national treasures.

*

MISSING PONY REPORT

Identity: Young adult Pegasus mare, answers to the name of Lumina ‘Lightning’ Dust.

Cutie-Mark: Lightning bolt and three stars

Coat and Wings: Teal

Mane and Tail: Striped in alternating bronze and gold

Eyes: Gold

Last Seen: Flying south-east from Cloudsdale yesterday, possibly vectored towards Ponyville.

Please forward all sightings to the Cloudsdale Constabulary, 113 Light Materials Street, Cloudsdale.

A Missing Pony Report circulated in Cloudsdale the day after Commander Marcus Renee’s arrival in Ponyville. Due to the confusion prevalent at this time, a similar report forwarded to the Central Constabulary in Canterlot was lost in paperwork and not discovered for several months...

*

The direct distance between Halifax and Boston is 410 miles. A train travelling between these two points via Quebec, Montreal and Millers Falls must travel a distance three times as great (1230 miles approx).

Assuming that the Barrier has just consumed Halifax, and is advancing towards Boston at a walking speed of 3.5 miles per hour, calculate:

A: How much time will elapse before it reaches Boston

B: The minimum average speed such a train must maintain to remain ahead of it at all times

C (Bonus Question): Assuming that the train is stationary for 65% of the time (for various breakdowns, delays, fuel shortages and attacks), and can maintain an average speed of 17 mph at other times, how far ahead of the barrier will it arrive in Boston?

A hand-written exercise found scribbled down in a maths textbook that eventually came into the possession of the PHL (Ponies for Human Life) not long after the initial Battle of Boston. The correct answers are as follows:

A: 117 hours and 9 minutes – or 4 days, 21 hours and 9 minutes
B: 10.67mph
C: It won’t

Author's Notes:

Well, I'm back.

Hi there all. TB3 here, former co-author of TCB: The Other Side of the Spectrum. I've been away for some time now but I'm back for the final push, and hoping you all enjoy this contribution to the impressive beast that is the Spectrum-verse.

Cheers, and enjoy the ride!