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VIDEO LOG BEGINS

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(A young-looking white Caucasian man with bluish green eyes looks at the camera, and and sighs; a look of exhaustion on his face, with a weak smile. He then lightly chuckles, and begins to speak in a medium-pitched voice.)

Day One, and already I feel like crap... kinda like jet lag mixed with being spun around in the middle of the sun for a week, while the food in your stomach stays within it to rot your guts out. I guess traveling through universes will do that... might have to check the engines later, too, since they appeared to have a few occasional hiccups with the schedule, and I'm the only technician in this vessel with a bit of knowledge in engineering, as well... oh, well. At least I won't be sitting around like the "Jar Heads" around here... shit... I hope I don't have a nosy roommate here... one with anger issues, that is.

Anyways, I'm sure anyone who hears this is wondering who I am. Well, my real name is Justin Daniels, and I'm, as I said just a second ago, a technician. Of course, we're given code names here to keep our identities safe, so you can just call me Anonymous. Why? Well, because I couldn't think of another name at the time... though I kinda hoped "Dragonfire" or something like that would be good, but most of those names were taken, already. Ah well... my code name can be broken down to nicknames like "Anon" or "Mr. A", so that's not all too bad, at least... as long as they don't think the "A" means "Ass"! Now THAT would suck big time, because we can't change these names! ...Damn, the more I think about it, the more I'm starting to regret using that nickname! (Justin chuckles again, before placing his right hand over his forehead.) I should probably change the subject.

Sorry if I sound a little hyper right now, but... I'm just so excited to actually be invited by the UE... as in, THE UE! The Universal Explorers! Sure, I'm just a recruit right now, but hopefully I can prove my stuff to them, and become one of the big dogs around here!

So anyways, right now I'm being sent to boot camp which, coincidentally, happens to be on the same world we're gathering resources from! And guess what? It's also named Earth, according to the commander, Nicholas Wilson... though he prefers we address him as "Commander Wilson". I don't know why, but for some reason, I'm starting to wonder if he might be related to some sort of ball... I mean, just the shape of his head is round enough to prove my point, as well! (Justin chuckles at his last statement.) Oh, man... I hope he doesn't hear that!

(Justin lets out an audible gasp.) Ooh! Looks like the planet's coming into view! I might have to end this Video Log here, then!

...Wow, though! It looks... colorful, actually! Almost like it provides a healthy source of oxygen everywhere! The commander, however, told us that the climate in this world is, without a doubt, different from our world, and that a few soldiers have tried to breathe in this world's air... only to start choking as if they were in outer space. Yeah... not gonna test that statement!

Well, I guess that's all I wanted to say, so... wish me luck, because the eagle has landed! Only... I'm technically the BRAINS of this eagle. Nothing more... nothing less

(An elderly-sounding British woman's voice speaks up.)

"All units are now to put on their ASMs as instructed, and are required to keep them on until further instructions are given! Remember, the environment of THIS Earth is not to be confused with the environment of OUR Earth. The oxygen in this world has already been proven to be far too volatile for human inhalation."

(Justin coughs a few times, before slipping a mask over his face; a mask that resembles an astronaut's mask, minus the helmet around it, and the size being slimmer horizontally, to cover just his face, with a large number of straps that wrap around the back of his head. Then he waves at the camera with his right hand while he reaches his left hand behind the camera. A split-second click soon follows.)

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VIDEO LOG ENDS

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Regardless of the fact that I'm just simply a technician, I still am required to wear the military-grade armor that they gave me. I look through the mirror in my dorm room, and examine my appearance carefully.

My hair, despite being almost completely shaved to half a centimeter long, is still dark brown, despite me being thirty two years old. My face, despite my age, also barely shows any wrinkles forming. I'm just lucky, I guess. At this day and age, there's normally a few people who at least show small signs of dullness and whiteness in their hair in a few spots... must have something to do with the large clouds of pollution that our Earth has in its orbit, while I'm still looking young and healthy! In fact, I could still run around like a hyperactive kid in a candy store... but I digress.

My stomach is very slim, and my arms aren't really that masculine... but hey, that's subject to change soon, right? Anyways, I'm wearing a sleeveless camouflage jacket, a pair of camouflage cargo pants, a pair of dark brown combat boots, and a small camouflage backpack that contains the important gear for when I'm out in the field fixing shit up... and half the junk sounds like it would come from a science-y movie... so I won't bore you with the details, despite my fascination for science.

I checked my backpack, and found both of my ASMs in their proper locations... that's "Air Supply Masks", in case you didn't know. Yeah, these people are strict when it comes to organization! Then again, if one of our ASMs get knocked out of whack, and there's a buddy of ours nearby, I guess they'll know where to look, so it ain't all that bad, I guess.

After taking a quick selfie with my phone's camera system, I place it back in my utility belt; within the pouch that I have for my miscellaneous junk. Please don't ask me what I put in it, because I couldn't, for the life of me, tell you everything that's in it... I've been a hoarder since birth, so... yeah... oh, and I ain't breaking any rules by having a phone at hand! Since there's no signals back to Earth through them, it's not like we'll be using them much anyways. Besides, I'm mostly just using mine for a series of Video Logs... which I will later use to document how things are up here, and all that. I can already see the amount of hits my video will be!

Anyways, I take the selfie to compare my muscles now with when the training is complete. That was one of my main goals when I signed up for this company... to build physique, and character... and since the ARMY wouldn't take me due to my... medical restrictions... I had no other option! Besides, this one is mostly just voluntary, so it's all good!

After a few more moments of making sure I'm ready, the doors to the halls open, and all the people start walking through; me included. In unison, we all head towards the main area, where we will be briefed on what to do.

As the flight comes to a halt, me and a few of the other jar heads (AKA Soldiers) are already in the main room, where we would all step out of our week-long flight, and into the new world. In this case, from Earth of our universe to Earth in another universe... it still kinda confuses me how NASA was able to develop this kind of technology in such a short time period! Apparently they've been keeping us civvies in the dark for a while, and secretly sending a few people (volunteers, no less) on hidden missions across space; building new towers to keep their signals strong, and getting new readings on unexplored planets; though all of them ended up being readings of common space-related situations. For example, they would get a pulse on their radars when they sensed movement on the planets... but the movement was mostly just the climates or chunks of rock from outer space nicking the planets' surfaces.

Then... it all changed when this planet came into the picture.

While Earth One; my home, was starting to run short on resources, this one is quite the polar opposite! In fact, it has endless caves and, from what a few people told me, a ton of diamonds that don't even need to be mined! That's right... apparently diamonds in this world can be dug up with a shovel!

That's not the only part, though! Apparently this world has something that none of the scientists would've ever expected... life! And not just life, either... creatures that had shockingly similar appearances to the ones back in our Earth! I can recall someone asking if we made it to the right one, or not... yeah, I got a good kick out of that.

Albeit, none of the creatures were human-like in any way... but they did have quite the abundance of oddly-shaped ponies that roamed around in strange little communities. From the looks of it, though, those communities mostly consisted of human-made tents and stuff. They told us that these ponies were, despite their innocent looks, feudal and hostile upon seeing them for the first time, and made it clear that they weren't going to share their resources with us... by killing off a few of our men. I kinda doubted that, but by the looks of things, they had, and I kid you not, unicorns and pegasi! Freakin' creatures of MYTHOLOGY! And by the looks of things, the unicorns were able to levitate things with their horns, while the pegasi were able to fly. They also had other ponies who didn't have either. I'm guessing they were more skilled with the land, or some shit like that.

With that in mind, I still couldn't believe that none of our weapons were lethal in any way! Our assault rifles, our shotguns... Hell, even our grenades were all built for stunning! As for why, I couldn't tell. Then again... nobody was ever told that. I just figured it out by looking at the bullets that came in the clips of each magazine. Everyone else seemed to think otherwise. I even quietly smirked at the comments people made, saying "I can't wait ta kill somethin' with these things!"

I would think to myself, "Ha... good luck with that one, buddy!" Of course, I was also glad not to have to use lethal force on any of these ponies. Feudal or not, they were almost kinda cute, actually! Key word, though... almost. Still, though, I wouldn't be able to stomach the thought of killing one of these creatures... maybe it's their unbelievably large eyes, or something. Anyways, moving on!

As soon as we land, the door to the airship slowly lowers to the ground level; revealing our campsite. Surprisingly, this campsite was stationed in the middle of a large jungle... or forest... whatever it is... with huge metal fences surrounding the borders of the tents!

A few soldiers were already there; either training with the drill sergeants yelling their brains out of their ears, running around the base in a line, or chatting with a few of their fellow jar heads. I won't go too far into details there.

Anyways, the group and I step out of the doorway, only to be greeted by a lady with black hair tied in a ponytail in the back who, apparently, is in charge of filling us in on what to do.

"Hello, gentlemen. Welcome to 'New Eden'! I'm Samantha Green, and I'm in charge of the intellectual ones of you... or in this case, one. I'm not much on formalities, though, so you can just call me Sam. Now, then... which one of you is Anonymous?"

I raise my right hand and say, "That's me."

She nods her head, and then replied, "Good... stay put. The rest of you jar heads are to report to your stations with the numbers you were given prior to your arrival. Don't keep the sergeant waiting, though! Not all of them are forgiving for tardiness... and by not all, I mean none of them are... so why are you all still here? Move!"

As the others departed, I watched as she walked up to me; eager for my first assignment.

"Anon, I presume?" She asks me without showing much emotion... but that's mostly because she was wearing the same kind of mask that I was, so it was practically impossible to know for sure.

Out of gut instinct, I loudly reply, "Reporting for duty, ma'am!"

She gives me a chuckle, before replying, "It's alright, kid! You ain't in the ARMY side of this operation, so you don't have to worry about me chewing you up, and spitting you out." Then she added, "Sure it may look like the ARMY, but in reality, this is a much... much nicer place than ya might think!"

With that, she walks me towards the large tent where the other eggheads like me would be hanging around. "Yeah," I think to myself, "I can get used to this!"

Next Chapter: Episode 1: "Basic" Training Estimated time remaining: 18 Minutes