The Mechanical Technomancer in Equestria: Technology is Magic
Chapter 3: Chapter 2
Previous Chapter Next Chapter[Earth, 802 years in the past]
The sounds of both magic and physical based Artillery fire roared all around Gerhardt as he quickly double checked and recalibrated his primary weapon. It was a custom designed large caliber Heavy Assault Rifle with three separate barrels that could be swapped between with the press of a button, each of which fired something different in order to best overcome effectively any defenses his enemies could possibly use.
The first barrel was made of silver and fired 1 in bolts of magic that exploded on impact to annihilate most basic magic shields. The second barrel used an advanced recoil-less telekinetic system that fired 15 mm tungsten carbide rods mass enchanted to reduce drag and the loss of kinetic energy over distance at mach 9 to pierce through most physical armor. The third and final barrel fired 1 in beams of concentrated coherent photons and could easily be calibrated to shoot at any frequency ranging from microwaves to gamma rays if the enemies defenses were too advanced or complex for the other two modes to penetrate effectively or to shoot straight through them if they were even slightly transparent.
Satisfied with the condition of his primary weapon Gerhardt looked out over the battlefield — once a beautiful major city on the eastern border of the Human Kingdom, now little more than a bloody war zone littered with the rubble of collapsed skyscrapers, craters from aerial and artillery bombardment, and the broken, shattered, and sometimes burning remains of aircraft, armored vehicles, combat golems, and other such war machines that had yet to be recovered for repair or recycling — and scowled as he watched an enemy artillery shell slam into the side of another skyscraper before exploding, causing the entire thing to collapse. His heads up display informed him that had been one of the few remaining buildings that had yet to be fully evacuated. Exactly 637 civilians had still been inside, now they were all dead or were going to die eventually since no one had the time to dig them out.
The dark crimson perfectly clear lab grown rubies that served as his eyes glowed brighter in utter rage and his mechanical silver hands gripped his rifle slightly tighter as he used the flight path, angle, and speed of the artillery shell to calculate the exact position of the gun that fired it. He then used video feeds from the few Combat Golems in the area to confirm his calculations were correct. “High Lord Mechanica to all functional Super Heavy Combat Golems and Artillery Cannons within a three mile radius of my current coordinates. Confirmation Code: 34TM921B. I want zone D9-47J wiped off the gods damned map. Begin bombardment immediately until the total destruction of everything within the area then return to firing at your assigned targets.” He ordered through the communication system built into his head with nothing but cold fury in his voice.
Sure giving that order may have been a bit vindictive and unprofessional of him, but he was in a bad mood right now and he highly doubted anyone would call him out on it. If they did, he would simply call it a strategic decision to take out a seemingly valuable enemy artillery platform as soon as possible. It would be very difficult to prove otherwise as with his brain wirelessly connected to all 250,000 Combat Golems in the city he could see through 500 of their eyes at once allowing him to see almost everywhere across the city just by switching between their video feeds. Thus he had a massive strategic advantage over the Serpents and a far greater perspective of the battlefield then anyone else, meaning all but the few individuals in the entire Kingdom who were the most skeptical and critical of him would be willing to simply take his word for it.
However, while his brain was connected to the golems that didn’t mean he was controlling them all. They were all just as autonomous as combat golems typically were, and they were all in several thousand platoons and other units under the direct command of the soldiers from the R&D branch that they were assigned to. His current unaugmented motor cortex wasn’t powerful enough to control even so much as two bodies at once let alone 250,000, nor could he possibly hope to give commands to so many individual units at once. Even the bleeding edge technology of his occipital processors was barely advanced enough to handle processing his own vision plus even 500 of the 250,000 live video feeds at once.
Having given his orders he adjusted his grip on his weapon and ordered the squad he was leading to begin marching forwards. Their current mission was to escort an “Executioner” class Heavy Combat Golem safely to the center of the city, where the bulk of the fighting was currently taking place. The golem itself was two stories tall, had very thick magically reinforced steel armor, weighed several hundred tons, had well over two dozen small guns to obliterate enemy troops, two arms with two huge cannons with three barrels each where the forearms should have been which operated similarly to Gherhardt’s custom built Heavy Assault Rifle but were designed to destroy enemy tanks and bunkers rather than individual soldiers, and two shoulder mounted cannons that fired canisters of poisonous gas and powerful military grade gaseous super-acid respectively.
As they passed by the building that collapsed, Gerhardt saw something crawling out from under some of the rubble. He thought it was a woman but it was extremely hard to tell as she was very badly burned, was severely mutilated, was covered in blood and dust, was bleeding profusely, had bits of shrapnel, glass, and wood of various sizes sticking out of her body, and was missing both of her legs below her knees.
“H-hep… eee… iii hurrrsss…” she struggled to beg through a severely broken jaw, though Gerhardt could guess what she meant easily enough. She wanted help, as anyone would in her situation. Unfortunately, given the severity of her wounds Gerhardt was honestly surprised she wasn’t already dead and he knew that even if she were to receive healing by the best medical mage in the world that very instant, she would still die in a few minutes to an hour at maximum, and that was in a fully stocked hospital. As such, he did the only thing he could in this situation.
He reached under his combat robes to the side of the belt of his pants and pulled his side arm out of its holster. It was a fairly basic but reliable telekinetic pistol that fired hollow point 9 mm rounds made of solid lead at mach 5, meant to put a hole through either the head or the heart of the average enemy soldier. Flipping the safety off he aimed the pistol straight at her head and with a sigh he said, “I’m sorry, ma’am. I wish I could help you, I really do, but unfortunately this is the only mercy I can offer you. May you suffer not in death.” He then pulled the trigger. There was a loud BANG as the lead hollow point round broke the sound barrier before slamming into the slowly dying woman’s skull, killing her instantly and ending her suffering.
He then simply re-holstered his pistol and continued marching. This was not the first time he had been forced to deliver a mercy killing and he very much doubted it would be the last, so he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it. If he had still been physically capable of sleep that is.
(The scene fast forwarded)
Gerhardt had finally reached the center of the city and it was like a scene from the end of the world. Exactly 43 minutes and 25 seconds after he finally reached the center of the city and began fighting, those gods damned Snakes from the Serpentine Republic had conducted a blood ritual using the countless corpses littering the city and all of the pain and suffering this battle was generating to open a massive portal to the infernal realm allowing numberless hordes of demons to spill out into the world. The Serpents were now retreating and the demons were killing, torturing, and destroying everyone and everything they could get their gods forsaken claws on, be they civilians, soldiers, or even mere animals.
He and what remained of his squad were trying to hold off the demons to the best of their abilities but they were quickly being overwhelmed. Their “Executioner” class Heavy Combat Golem had already been destroyed by the demons and most of what remained of his squad were using its burning half melted remains as cover. Unfortunately the hellfire the demons were throwing at them was about to melt all the way through it.
“This is High Lord Mechanica to all Human forces in the city, military and civilian alike. Confirmation Code: 34TM921B. The Serpents opened a massive portal to the Infernal Realm. We are being overwhelmed by demons. I repeat, we are being overwhelmed by demons. I am now ordering all members of the R&D branch to retreat and evacuate the city immediately and I highly recommend that all units from all other branches and any civilians that may be hearing this do the same. This city is lost. I will be approving the use of Arcane W.M.D.s in order to destroy that portal as well as this city in approximately two hours, Priority Code: Alpha. Haste is highly recommended.” He announced through his built in communication system, which he currently had set to transmit on all frequencies.
Firing fully automatic salvos of 15 mm tungsten carbide rods from his custom built Heavy Assault Rifle at any demons he saw since while their magical defenses were damn near impenetrable their physical defenses were almost pitiful, he followed his own orders and began retreating. A ball of pure hellfire slammed into his right shoulder, burning through his now tattered and torn combat robes and melting his arm completely off his body making him lose his grip on his weapon. His artificial pain receptors flared agonizingly in response causing him to cry out in pain. Gritting his artificial teeth, he tried his best to focus despite the pain and used a telekinetic spell to lift his Heavy Assault Rifle off the ground before grabbing it with his left hand. It would be very awkward and unwieldy to use with only one hand due to its size, as it was designed for use with both hands, but he was just going to have to make do.
Once he eventually ran completely out of magazines of tungsten carbide rods for the telekinetic barrel of his gun, he used telekinesis to press one of the buttons on the side causing the three barrels to rotate until the third barrel which shot concentrated beams of coherent photons was on top of the “triangle” of barrels. Quickly calibrating it to fire gamma rays, as that was one of the hardest frequencies of light to defend against, he began firing his weapon while trying his best to duck and dodge out of the way of balls, beams, and waves of hellfire that were flying towards him. There were flashes of bright purple visible light every time he pulled the trigger that was meant to serve as an indicator to let him know whenever his weapon was firing since while his eyes were designed to see in the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums they were most definitely not designed to see on the gamma spectrum, which was something he decided he would have to try his best to rectify at some point
As he retreated he saw a child being skinned alive by one of the demons, one of the soldiers who had been in his squad being hung from a street light from a noose made of his own entrails, people being burned alive, and countless other horrors as what remained of the ruined streets gutters were slowly starting to fill with fresh blood. Gerhardt shot and killed a few of the victims to end their suffering and to deprive the demons of another victim whenever he could, utterly infuriating their tormentors who would always immediately attack him for “ruining their fun” or “breaking their toys”.
All the while, aircraft continued to fly over dropping bombs and sharp steel flechettes while pelting streets with a variety of physical and magic projectiles, artillery continued to fall from the skies like rain, and buildings continued to collapse all around him as the parts of the Human Military that were still outside or flying above the city tried their damnedest to slow down the spread of the demons in an attempt to limit how many of them escaped before the bombs fell. Sadly this had the unfortunate side effect of limiting how many humans could get out in time as well. Fortunately for Gerhardt, he had the added advantage of being a mage which meant, while portals were too dangerous to use at the moment due to the blood ritual the serpents had conducted, he was still able to use telekinetic magic to carry himself over any rubble that was blocking his path that he couldn’t simply go around or climb over and he could use magic to create shields to protect himself whenever necessary.
Even so, a sizable chunk of his stomach was blown off by another ball of molten hellfire that caught him off guard, one of the rubies that served as his eyes had been completely shattered, 46% of his systems were either broken, offline, or barely functional, and one of his legs was damaged pretty severely causing him to move with a heavy limp. It was all so agonizing he was forced to shut down his pain receptors entirely. Still, despite the damage he had sustained, he pressed on trying his best to fight his way out of this doomed city within one hour and thirty seven minutes, which was all the time he had left before the W.M.D.s began falling and everything still inside was destroyed.
It had been 73 years since he officially became old enough to participate on the front lines in active combat. He was almost a century old now and In all his decades of service he had honestly thought he had seen the worst horrors this world had to offer especially after having fought the Ghouls and seen what they do to their victims and their victims' corpses. But he had been naive, oh so horribly naive, and now he was paying for it.
Yes the Ghouls were a grotesque species of vile sadists who tortured almost all of their victims before actually killing them. Yes they eviscerated their victims’ corpses and ritualistically hung their horrifically mutilated corpses and entrails out to rot so they could eat them later and used their victims bones to make everything from tools to ritual implements. All because Ghouls were a species of extreme carrion eaters who’s bodies actually required much of the bacteria present in rotten meat for digestion and they worshiped certain sadistic and malevolent gods of death who demanded such forms of sacrifice from their worshipers. They were by far the most twisted vile species of mortal creatures in existence and he would love nothing more than to see them eradicated off the face of reality itself.
However, even the worst atrocities ever committed by the most vile Ghouls in existence paled in comparison to what these Demons were currently doing. To be frank, the few victims he saw that were being skinned, burned, or hung by their own entrails while still alive were honestly meeting down right merciful fates compared to some of the other horrors he was currently witnessing and was actively trying to stop or prevent while he retreated. For the first time in his life he was witnessing evil. True, undeniable, objective evil and it was like a living nightmare he couldn’t wake up from no matter how much he desperately wanted to. Unfortunately, he knew full well that this wasn’t one of the infrequent times he had accidentally fallen asleep while working in a lab prior to the invention of his new brain augmentations. This was all truly happening and there was very little he could do to stop it other than what he had already done and was currently doing.
If his body were still capable of it, he was certain that he would have vomited by now. That his vision would be obscured by the tears that would have been streaming down his face from the sheer horror of it all. That he would either be dead or laying on the ground thrashing and screaming in agony from his wounds by now, in which case he would have very likely ended up becoming one of the countless victims of the demons. That he may have even gone insane by now if it weren’t for certain redundant fail-safes, systems, and programs installed in his head that were constantly correcting the code of the very few artificial parts of his brain and the brain activity of the parts that were still organic in order to prevent that from ever happening.
As he was running through the streets as fast as his damaged leg and ruined body would allow while shooting pretty much anything in sight that he reasonably could, he honestly couldn’t even tell if being forcefully kept sane like this was a blessing or a curse. Mentally he knew he would appreciate it later on, right now though it most definitely felt far more like a particularly cruel curse he had unwittingly put upon himself.
(The illusory screen paused)
By the time Gerhardt had paused the memory Celestia was in tears and had summoned a bucket which she was currently vomiting into. “Oh calm down, would you? It wasn’t that bad. This memory is hardly worth being upset over, let alone this upset over. Especially given the fact that it all happened over eight hundred years ago.” The technomancer stated, unperturbed. He had intentionally blurred out the worst bits so she wouldn’t have to see them, so from his perspective she was overreacting by quite a bit.
Ignoring him for the moment, she continued to vomit the last of the contents of her stomach into the bucket. Finally she teleported it away and collapsed onto the table glaring weakly at the technomancer. “If...ugh… If this is one of your… m-memories then how can see-seeing this… this… atrocity again no-not affect you in the least…?! What the buck is wrong with you?!” She growled furiously, still recovering from having just thrown up.
“As I’ve told you, almost a thousand years of experience. One does not survive in my previous occupation for as long as I have by being overly emotional about every little thing they have survived. Also, while that may have been one of the worst memories I have, it is hardly the absolute worst, but I will be keeping those particular memories to myself as they are rather… well not quite personal, but somewhere close. Now, I have a question of my own.” He explained while mentally drawing up a few designs for an improved version of the love generator that wouldn’t break the moment a Changeling attempted to feed off of it.
“The Serpents of the Serpentine Republic are extremely over zealous religious fanatics who want to destroy humanity in the name of the god they worship and they have ever since the War of Survival when their god attempted to commit mass genocide on us. So they used their attack on that city to generate enough blood and suffering to conduct a blood ritual to open a portal to the Infernal Realm in hopes that the Demons they unleashed would kill us all for them so they wouldn’t have to waste their own resources doing it themselves. A rather short sighted plan given that the Demons wouldn’t have just stayed in our kingdom but would have spread across the world and would have destroyed the Serpents too had we not deployed arcane bombs to destroy the city and disrupt the portal before too many of them could get through so they could open even more portals elsewhere. That being said, I doubt they even thought of that or would have cared in the least even if they did since as a species they have always been unbelievably arrogant and overconfident in their own abilities, but I digress.”
“So, do you believe this situation could have been resolved peacefully without anyone getting hurt? That violence was not the only answer? That we could have simply talked with the Serpents and avoided all of this entirely? What about the demons? They are evil in its purest form and revel in the death and suffering of others, so how could we have possibly avoided fighting them? Pacifism can only get you so far, so instead of fighting the Serpents or the Demons as we did do you believe we should have just sat back and let our species be exterminated? Tell me honestly, as a pacifist what would you have done differently were you in our situation? Please keep in mind that we are mere mortals, not gods, spirits, or demigods so we are limited in what we are actually capable of doing.”
By this point Celestia appeared to have mostly recovered from her earlier nausea, however she still seemed to have been caught slightly off guard by his question. “I… I don’t know… Violence is wrong but… Those demons...” She shuddered, looking nauseous again as she apparently recalled the horrors they subjected their victims to.
“Indeed. Truly horrible entities, demons. Interestingly, while there are many spirits that are hostile for various reasons, demons are actually the only lesser spirits in existence that are well and truly “evil”. And while I fully realize that good and evil are typically all based on perspective, I do mean that objectively in this case. They are the literal embodiments of evil and malevolence given physical form, as all spirits are the literal embodiments of whatever concept they represent.” Gerhardt stated in acknowledgement. Saying this however, brought out his academic side a bit as he started thinking about spirits and how they functioned.
“Actually — continuing to use demons as an example for the moment though this very much applies to all spirits —, our concepts of what evil even is are likely very different from one another. As such, while the appearance of the demons might possibly share a few common features between our perceptions, there would still be slight variations between what they look like to you versus what they look like to me. Maybe they were larger to you or perhaps they were shorter, or maybe they had larger, smaller, longer, shorter, more, or less teeth, fangs, mouths, horns, wings, arms, legs, tentacles, claws, hooves, eyes, tails, scales, fur, etc. Unless a spirit intentionally takes on a very specific form then their actual appearance all depends on the perception of the individual looking at them at the time. In fact, after watching this memory again, the demons actually look vastly different to me right now than they did 802 years ago when I first saw them. Fascinating is it not?”
Awaiting a response, he looked at Celestia who was currently just staring at him silently. It took him a few microseconds but he eventually realized why. The overlapping copper plates that served as his lips slid down somewhat into a slight frown. “Oh… How embarrassing… It appears I was rambling. I should have realized this sooner and stopped myself… Gods damn me and my blasted vocalizer! My sincerest apologies for my rudeness, Princess. Please just forget I said anything and let us continue our conversation.”
Celestia chuckled slightly and shook her head. “It’s fine Mr. Mechanica. Honestly, it reminded me a bit of my student Twilight. Sometimes she goes off on tangents like that whenever she’s talking about a subject that she finds particularly interesting too. I’m sure you two would get along wonderfully. Well… That is, assuming you don’t kill or dismember anypony else or show her any memories like this one.” She motioned to the paused illusory screen floating slightly above the table in front of her. “Anyways, to answer your earlier question… I honestly don’t know what I would do in that situation. I can only hope I never am.”
“Then I highly suggest you think about it in case you ever are. In the meantime, I will be showing you yet another memory. It won’t be quite as bad as the first, as there will be no demons committing acts so evil that just witnessing them could drive a person insane. However, I do recommend you steel yourself, and perhaps prepare another bucket for yourself since you appear to have a weak stomach, as it will be very close to as dark and gruesome as the first just in a slightly different way.”
Not waiting for a response he waved a hand and caused the illusory screen to change. It began depicting a scene from another of his worst memories, taking place only a few short years after the first memory. It was one of the largest battles Gerhardt had personally fought in during the single largest assault ever conducted by Caedes and his army of undead, necromancers, and liches after he went rogue.
The battle the screen was showing was Caedes’ attack on the Elven kingdom. Not just one or two cities within the kingdom, but the literal kingdom itself. This was because, unlike most species the Elves were not spread across multiple settlements. They had what was effectively one absolutely immense city that was spread across the entire Aeternus Forest, which was the third largest forest in the world and was filled with trees that very nearly rivaled small skyscrapers in size. Unfortunately that’s also what made the attack so devastating.
While the Elven kingdom’s defenses were damn near impenetrable against traditional armies, against Caedes and his undead ripping through it was practically childs play because of the fact undead and necromancers positively thrived inside large cities. The attack was so spread out the Elves military couldn’t put up an effective resistance. Undead were still a very new concept that no one really knew how to combat effectively at that point in time. Every living thing that died would immediately be forced to join Caedes’ ranks as not just one but two separate undead, the victim’s reanimated corpse as well as their enslaved disembodied spirit. The Nature spirits that resided in the forest were aggressive towards both the Undead and the Human Military, which made things far more complicated and difficult than they needed to be. Plus Caedes had apparently somehow managed to kill a gods damned dragon and used it to set almost half of the forest on fire before they were actually able to destroy the undead monster's body and soul.
Unfortunately, fighting the undead out of the forest had been deemed effectively impossible. As such, Gerhardt’s mission during this attack was to lead his troops and the search and rescue golems in finding and evacuating as many Elves from the forest as physically possible before they could be killed and turned into more undead while the Army branch held off Caedes’ forces to the best of their abilities. It had been horrible. He had to watch as hundreds of men, women, and children were ripped apart, eaten, had their souls ripped out and their corpses reanimated, all while trying to defend and evacuate countless others.
By the end of it all the Elven kingdom had effectively been destroyed, the Elves had lost well over half of their total population, their line of succession had been wiped out, Caedes’ undead’s numbers had increased by hundreds of millions, hundreds of Nature Spirits had been corrupted by necromancy turning them into the first Spirits of Undeath, the Human Kingdom had to contend with millions of new refugees who were now all in need of medical attention, food, water, shelter, psychological counseling, and so much more. It had been nothing but an absolute disaster from start to finish. After the war was over, half the remaining Elves decided to stay in the Human Kingdom as citizens while the other half returned to the Aeternus forest to rebuild their kingdom. It took the Elves centuries to repair the majority of the damage to the forest even with as much assistance as the Human Kingdom could reasonably provide them, and to this day their kingdom still has yet to fully recover.
Celestia appeared somewhat nauseous again as the screen showed mutilated and decaying zombies and skeletons ripping people apart and eating them like a bunch of rotting cannibals, to her credit though she did not actually throw up this time. She also appeared devastated as the screen played scenes of families being torn apart as children or their parents had to be forcefully dragged away in tears while their loved ones were slaughtered and turned into more undead, and other such tragic scenes that were of a similar nature.
After a few minutes of showing her some of the worst clips he had of this entire event, Gerhardt finally paused the illusory screen again. He then proceeded to give Celestia a brief summary of the battle and the war, leaving out everything he could about necromancy by simply calling it “dark magic” and by not providing her with any details about what it actually was or how it worked. “Now, do you have any questions or comments?” He inquired, frowning at the illusory screen as he recalled all the atrocities his former apprentice had committed. The destruction of the Elven Kingdom was horrible, yes, but it was by no means the worst thing he had ever done. Gerhardt sort of wished that he had been the one to kill that bastard, but some Combat Mage from the Army branch had gotten to him first.
“Oh, I have plenty of questions. However, I feel like we would be here until next week if I were to ask everything that I want to.” Celestia stated, clearly unhappy and unsatisfied with everything she just learned.
“Very well. Just know that our wars are typically not like these two memories I have shown you. Wars in general are always horrible and anywhere between hundreds and millions of people usually die on both sides, yes. These two events, however, are rather extreme and can more easily be classified as disasters. However, disasters like these are still fairly common. In my experience they happen every few decades or so. Now tell me, if you were in my position and were mortal like me rather than a demigod, between constant wars where your enemies will kill or enslave you if you don’t fight back no matter how much you try to negotiate and disasters like these do you honestly believe that you could possibly remain a pacifist? Would you still believe that violence is never the right answer? Would you still be criticizing my actions today?”
Celestia sighed and shook her head. “No, probably not.” She admitted reluctantly. “However, I am not in your position and, Harmony willing, I never will be. As such, I still believe your use of excessive force more than warrants punishment.”
Gerhardt stared at her. “Really? You do realize that I am already going to have to waste my time building each of them new limbs, correct? Is that not punishment enough?”
Celestia gave him a stern look and snorted. “If you had a slightly different attitude about it then maybe. However, since you seem more worried about your time then the health and wellbeing of the Changelings you mutilated, no it isn’t. Granted, given what I now know of your past and your world I don’t believe I can give you too harsh a punishment. Plus you have done Equestria a great service by brokering peace between us and the Changelings, so I do believe you deserve a bit of a reward as well… Hm… I’ll have to think it over. As soon as I come up with something I’ll let you know. Until then I’ll have a servant show you to one of the guest rooms. After everything that’s happened today you must be absolutely exhausted.” She yawned. “I know I am.”
“Actually, no. Not at all. My body’s need for sleep was one of the first things I removed when I first invented brain augmentations. I am now actually completely incapable of it. Instead, I would appreciate it if you could have someone show me to the medical facility the Changelings are being held at so I may get a few measurements in order to design their prosthetics to fit their respective bodies. After that, all I will need is materials I can use and a place to work. Also, I would like to know where the nearest public library is so that I may read up on this kingdom’s laws, culture, and history among other things. Oh, and I still need a notebook or a sizable stack of papers and some ink so I can write those notes you have requested. No need for a quill though as I would much prefer to just build myself a fountain pen to write with.” Gerhardt explained.
Celestia rested a hoof against her face in exasperation and said, “At this point I’m not even surprised… I would recommend that you fix that as soon as you have the tools and materials to do so. Luna may enjoy having somepony new other than her night guard staying awake to admire her night for awhile, but that will wear out fairly quickly once she realizes that you legitimately never sleep. When she does she might be slightly offended as she tries her hardest to give everypony pleasant dreams just as she tries her hardest to make the night sky as beautiful as possible. While the night sky has always been her favorite, recently she has started taking a lot of pride in both of her duties.”
“Wait? Dreams? The night sky? Forgive my ignorance but what do you mean by that? I can only assume you are speaking metaphorically but I’m afraid I do not understand the metaphor.” Gerhardt inquired in confusion. He remembered Chrysalis mentioning something like this earlier and it made just as little sense to him now as it did then.
Celestia gave him a slightly confused look. “No… I mean that literally. I raise and lower the sun every morning and night and my sister literally raises and lowers the moon every night and morning. As an extension of that my sister also controls the stars and protects everypony’s dreams from nightmares as they sleep.”
“No. You do not.” Gerhardt stated with unfaltering certainty. “Manipulating people’s dreams? Perhaps. Manipulating celestial bodies let alone at such vast distances? I’m sorry but no. You are not even close to a quarter as powerful as you would need to be to alter the rotation of the planet let alone move a moon or a star. Not to mention the fact that that’s not how physics works. Day and night happen on their own due to the rotation of the planet and its orbit around the sun, and seasons occur due to the change in the planet’s tilt as it slowly wobbles as it spins.”
Celestia frowned at him in annoyance. “Yes, I do. I have raised and lowered the sun everyday for over a thousand years. It has been extremely well researched and documented throughout history. It's about time for me to lower the sun today anyways so I can even prove it.” She stated, as she stood up and got out of her seat.
Gerhardt followed suit assuming she was going to lead him somewhere else in a futile attempt to prove her ridiculous claims. It turned out that his assumption was incorrect for as soon as he stood up, her horn began glowing and she teleported them both to a balcony with a clear view of the evening sky. Not waiting for him to say anything, she walked forwards towards the edge and her horn began to glow again. Gerhardt took this as his que to look up towards the sky. Strangely enough, the sun appeared to be picking up momentum as it rapidly began to grow lower and lower in the sky. As soon as it disappeared beyond the horizon, Celestia’s horn stopped glowing and she turned to face Gerhardt again seemingly awaiting a response.
“Fascinating.” Gerhardt commented, completely nonplussed by the sight. “Did you create that self perpetuating mass illusion across the sky yourself or did someone place it there for you?”
Celestia scowled at him, clearly taking offense to his question. “Illusion? There is no illusion! I just lowered the sun!”
“Yes there is and no you didn’t. To do anything even remotely approaching what you seemingly just did, you would have had to rotate the planet itself, not move the sun. However, it would take a Lesser God or Greater Spirit of immense power to force a planet to rotate like that. Not to mention the fact that once it begins rotating it would never stop rotating due to the laws of motion which state that an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. So, based on the process of elimination there has to be a massive illusion obscuring the actual sky that you can somehow alter otherwise that would have never happened.”
Celestia took a deep breath and said, “You know what? I’m too tired and have way too much of a headache to try arguing with you about this… There’s a library here in the Castle where you can read as well as request some paper and ink to write with, I’ll have a servant show you where it is. You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow morning to go to the hospital to get those measurements and I’ll have to try to find somewhere in the castle you can work until the paperwork for your new house is finished.” With that she turned and began walking away. Gerhardt heard her mutter something to a maid as she passed by them. Said maid nodded and began approaching him.
Not having anything else to do, Gerhardt followed the maid to the Castle library. As soon as they arrived, he thanked the maid for leading him and immediately approached what he assumed was the librarian sitting at what appeared to be the front desk, requested a stack of paper and some ink, lying and telling them he already had something to write with but was out of ink. The librarian seemed intimidated and nervous but gave him the stack of paper and ink anyways which he immediately took to an empty desk.
Setting the paper and ink off to the side, he cast a noise dampening illusion spell on the area around him, took out his tools and some of the few remaining materials he had and set to work building himself a new fountain pen. The entire process only took him a few minutes and when he was done he had a brand new fountain pen which had a rather bland steel tube for a body with a button on the side that made it suck in ink to refill it and a very fine pointed nib made of gold. After making a cap for his pen to cover it whenever he wasn’t using it so ink wouldn’t get everywhere he cleaned up his tools and scraps, filled the pen with ink, and put it in one of his robe’s pockets for later use.
He still had to work on translating the Equestrian’s written language before he could start writing his notes otherwise the Princesses and Queen Chrysalis would be unable to understand a thing he wrote down as his universal translator unfortunately only worked on spoken language not on writing. As such, he walked over to one of the first shelves of books and began using telekinesis spells to pull books out one after another and rapidly flip through each and every last one of their pages before returning them to the exact spots they were before. His brain’s enhanced processing speed allowed him to record each page in a matter of milliseconds which meant he could finish each book in a matter of seconds even when it would take an unaugmented individual hours of dedicated reading.
As he had expected, the books were all filled with what looked like utter gibberish to him. As such, while he was reading he began trying to decode and translate the language. He knew that it was going to be an agonizingly slow, tedious, and difficult process since he didn’t have even so much as a picture book a parent might use to teach a child how to read to work with. Fortunately the more writing samples he had the faster the process would be and he had access to plenty of samples since he was currently in the middle of a library.
However, even if he read every last book in this place it was still going to take him until tomorrow morning to translate the language at minimum, and that was according to his most optimistic estimates. If he was particularly unlucky it could potentially even take him decades to do on his own depending on how different this language was to any he was familiar with, but he would request assistance long before it came to that.
As soon as he finished recording all of the books on the one shelf he moved on to the next one and then the next one and so on. This process continued like this for about ten minutes until he felt something tap on his leg. Quickly finishing the book he was currently recording, he levitated it and the other books currently in his telekinetic grip back into their places on the shelf and turned around. Looking down he saw a purple unicorn-esque pony staring at him in a mixture of curiosity and fear. It wasn’t the disturbed or unsettled look most people had when they saw him but legitimate fear. Running a quick scan of the creature’s biosigns confirmed that she was indeed well and truly terrified of him for some reason. He couldn’t help but wonder why.
It was then he realized that he actually recognized this pony. She was one of the six civilians that had been present during his arrival and had witnessed his earlier act of self defense in person. Well, that certainly explained why she was afraid of him. While he had no intention of hurting her unless she tried to kill him, it was still quite brave of her to approach him like this after what she had seen. “Ah, I remember you. You are one of the civilians from earlier. I can tell you are afraid of me, which is rather unnecessary as I have no intention of harming you or anyone else but is completely understandable given the circumstances. I do apologize if my presence here is distracting you. I can move to a different location where you will not have to see me if that is of any assistance.” He stated, trying his best to be polite.
The pony seemed genuinely surprised for a moment and shook her head. “N-no, no! It’s fine. Really! You apparently helped create peace between the Changelings and Equestria, so I know you can’t be that bad. It’s just…” She trailed off, seemingly trying to think of what to say.
“You aren’t used to seeing such bloody acts of violence?” Gerhardt finished for her.
She winced at that. “Er… Yeah… That… Um… Anyways, is it true that you’re an alien?”
“Honestly, there’s actually quite a bit more to it then that but for the sake of simplicity, yes I am. I am not originally from this world therefore by definition I am indeed an “alien”. Why?” He asked, not understanding the purpose of this line of questioning.
“Well, would you mind if I asked you a few questions? You’re the first actual extraterrestrial to ever visit Equis in history! If possible I would absolutely love to have the chance to learn as much as I can about you, your species, and your world!” She exclaimed, all her earlier fear and nervousness vanishing in a flash as excitement and eagerness took its place.
“I’m afraid I’m rather busy at the moment. I am in the middle of trying to gather writing samples in order to translate your species written language. Unfortunately my universal translation device can only translate speech, not text.” Gerhardt informed her.
Hearing that she seemed to deflate slightly in disappointment. However, an idea seemed to strike her and she perked back up almost immediately. “I can help you translate our language! It would be a perfect opportunity to learn a bit about your language too, and you could answer a few of my questions while we do that!” She suggested eagerly.
Gerhardt stared at her for a moment, considering her offer. “I suppose that would speed things up quite a bit… Very well. Ah. How rude of me. I forgot to introduce myself. I am Gerhardt Mechanica, former High Lord of the Research and Development branch of the Human Kingdom, though I am sure you likely remember that from my earlier introduction. What is your name, if I may ask?”
“Oh, I’m Twilight Sparkle. While your arrival may have been a little… erm… rough, to say the least, it is still a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Mechanica.” She responded happily.