A World For Everypony

(This is the second, paired, write-up of Luciverine (Eponian Cluster), in response to reader request. This one is not the canon version, which can be found here - this version is Luciverine as it exists in the Friendship is Sufficiently Advanced shardverse.)

Every colony exists for a reason.

Sometimes that reason is obscure. This is not one of those times, since the foundation of the Luciverine colony proceeds directly from the discovery, almost a century ago, of the ponies of Equestria - Phosphoros (Eponian Cluster) - in a line sufficiently straight to cause envy in Kazamuráïc geometrical postulates.

I shall not reiterate the history of the Empire-Equestrian Treaty here, nor such freely-available references as the "Masters of Magic, Masters of Tools" speech that sold the alliance to both parties involved.

Suffice it to say that Luciverine today thrives as a prosperous ecumenical colony, and one of those few to be governed not by a single polity, but rather in condominium. In this case, in condominium implies de jure that Luciverine is titulary co-ruled by Her Highness Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, Magic, and Innovation, Vicereine of Luciverine for the Principality of Equestria, and Her Excellency Scout Leader Cordelia Vintar-ith-Vidutar, Rector-Commander of the Honorable Order of the Telescope, Vicereine of Luciverine for the Empire of the Star.

De facto, it means that Luciverine is administered by their seneschals, Raven Inkwell and <pattern-of-chimes-too-complex-for-this-orthography>. Fortunately, the earth pony and the myneni get along well, are both extremely competent, and are perfectly suited to overmanaging their principals, either of whom would trade all authority over the colony for more lab time at the least provocation.

(Those interested in the doings of exotic royalty may be interested to know what while Princess Celestia has been kept too busy by events at home to visit the colony, Princess Luna visits Luciverine semi-regularly, in the course of doing which she has earned a unique distinction as the only sophont to successfully go interstellar without a ship.)

So what of the colony itself? Ordinarily, it would be relatively undeveloped, a prebiotic eosylithic world in the early stages of ecopoesis - but a sign of how much the Empire values this alliance is just how much funding they've poured into its early development. While the fuel mines around Thúär are relatively conventional, Friendship Station isn't a conventional habitat-highport, but the anchor of a "Tri"-type beanstalk descending to the planet's first settlement, Harmony City. (Star Packet Lines runs multiple combined passenger-freight liners on a route from High Canterlot in Phosphoros (Eponian Cluster) to Seranth (Imperial Core), stopping at Friendship Station; ships call approximately every standard month.)

Harmony City itself is a bustling boom-town, entrepôt, and cultural meeting-place. While the original colony spires of the Empire's seedship can still be made out around the base of the orbital elevator, a miles-wide worldhouse dome spreads out beneath it, and the land within is covered in scattered villages of earth pony dirt farmers, whose terraturgy is driving ecopoesis at a vastly accelerated rate. (The villages are usually built around IES forward stations, themselves delivered from orbit to surface by the modern descendant of party cannon technology - the Revel Railgun first famously used in the defense of Ponyville during the Storm King's invasion.) In between the two, Harmony City itself sprawls in a ferment of exocreole architecture attempting to find its way.

What can you find there? Nothing but the best of two worlds.

You should first, of course, visit the First Contact Memorial! It's hard to miss, since the statue depicting the famous moment - or an acceptably stylized version of it, at least, since by Scout Leader Vintar's own account, she was unconscious at the time - is located in the center of the market plaza outside the Viceregal Library. (Which is the palace. Yes, you can still borrow books from it.)

Don't ask either Vicereine about it, though. It was a gift, and they find the whole thing quite embarrassing.

All the Imperial businesses you're used to are there, of course: you can find the All Good Things department store, Gilea & Company's offices and stock exchange with Prosperity Nexus's commercial bank, Extropa Energy's fusion plant - adapted, of course, to Equestrian wireless power - and all the rest in the Old Town.

But you can find those anywhere. What you're interested in are the things you can't, of which this is only a short list:

Dominating the area just outside the Old Town, and looking very much as if someone had blended at least two universities and a half-dozen research centers in an outsize cocktail shaker, then dropped it, is the Sparkle Institute of Technology and Thaumaturgy. This is rapidly coming to be the galaxy's premier research center into magic, ontotechnology, and pinkieology.

What's pinkieology, you ask? The only answer that we can give you without an impromptu musical number is that it's ontotechnology's fun cousin.

The whiteboards are complimentary, the multiracial medley of researchers are constantly distracted, and the weirdness-per-unit-volume is the highest anywhere you'll find outside Resplendent Exponential Vector.

Demonstrating that both halves of the partnership are equally invested in the practical applications of shared knowledge, the geodesic dome of Exogenesis, ICC rises opposite the Barn Deco laboratories of Sugar³ Applications, Equestria's first and largest technology development company founded by a young entrepreneur present for First Contact, Apple Bloom. With mission statements which started out opposite before proving to be the same thing, the two companies trade researchers so often that many of them don't seem to be very sure who they're actually working for.

Not that it matters in the long run - their knowledge-sharing agreement was written with this in mind.

Also worthy of note, if only to know where to send the inevitable noise complaints, is the Metaphysical Materials Test Facility. No-one foresaw the kaeth and Yakyakistani delegations instantly bonding over the joy of smashing, but in hindsight, it was inevitable. The researchers at Metaphysical - drawn from Atalant Materials and a consortium of Equestrian miners, metallurgists, and rock farmers - develop new and improbably tough enchanted materials, and the kaeth and yaks smash them apart. We may or may not get starships that can fly right through stars out of this, but everyone seems to be having a good time trying.

Also, they have the best booze on the planet, bar none.

Hanging in the clouds - of the clouds? - near the peak of the dome is the pegasus town of Aerie, which is well worth a visit. But don't forget to pick up a cloudwalking spell or a Sugar³ safe-flight amulet first!

Home to researchers studying the best ways to combine the Empire's large-scale satellite-based weather control with traditional pegasus weather teams, along with students in other aerial arts, Aerie's a city unlike any other in the Worlds. No-one's been able to figure out quite how it's possible to make water molecules behave like that yet, but Cirrus Cutter and her team are working on it!

In a large forest park set aside from the city's bustle, you can also visit the Interstellar Academy of Amity. Rather than the technological, research-focused experience of SIT&T, Princess Twilight's other university focuses on providing a classical education built around traditional Equestrian and Imperial values - friendship, harmony, and cooperation. It is open to students of any race and origin.

Its architecture is considered one of the finest examples of exocreole, smoothly incorporating structural and decorative features from both cultures. Appropriately, it was constructed by a mixed crew of Crystal Empire shapers and Eliéran crystalwrights.

And finally, at the fringes of science and of the star system, one can find the habitat tree of the Starlife Labs, a venture originally founded by the Extraplanetary Life Project of Kythera to further develop their work on cosmozoa, filling the void between the stars with life adapted to that realm.

While a choice based on the planetary location - adjoining the rich Luciv's Veil nebula - the prospect of spreading life to space has proven appealing to several unicorn biothaumaturgists, who have lent their talents to the project, potentially shortening what was originally thought likely to be the work of generations.