Where No Pony Has Gone Before
is a crossover between My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and Star Trek: The Original Series, written by RK_Striker_JK_5.
After a space probe makes accidental first contact with a planet inhabited by colorful equines, the USS Enterprise is sent in to open diplomatic relations with this strange new pony race. Unfortunately, the Klingons are also interested in this new alien world and its seemingly impossible magic. The story follows the trials and tribulations of Captain Kirk and his crew as they attempt to complete their diplomatic mission.
This work contains examples of:
- Attack Its Weak Point: Unicorn horns are vulnerable to physical impacts, and landing a good blow on one can significantly debilitate its owner. Kirk uses this to defeat Blueblood in their duel.
- Bar Brawl: A group of Federation and Klingon officers end up brawling with a bunch of yaks at the Punch Bowl.
- Bigger on the Inside: Kang lampshades the phenomenon of Equestrian buildings having noticeably larger interiors than their outside would suggest.
- Blinded by Rage: Knowing that Blueblood is thin-skinned, Kirk deliberately taunts him during the duel to try to throw him off his game.
- Blue Blood: If there's one good thing you can say about Prince Blueblood, it's that he lives up to his name.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Discord, of course, who knows Star Trek clichés ahead of time and is all too happy to reference them. Justified, however, by the fact that Star Trek is actually the fiction of the universe next door, so it's entirely possible that Discord knows about the show.
- Call-Forward: Twilight admits that she would probably turn into an overexcited fangirl if she ever met her hero Starswirl the Bearded — which is exactly what happens in the show.
- The Chessmaster: Kirk eventually realizes that Celestia has been manipulating things behind the scenes since before their mission even started.
- Clothing Damage: Kirk — of course — manages to tear his shirt while fighting Prince Blueblood.
- Continuity Nod: The events of "Day of the Dove" are brought up several times in reference to Kirk and Kang.
- Description Cut: In chapter 16, Rainbow Dash wonders what Shining Armor could possibly be doing in preference to a tour of a starship. Turns out he's playing Ogres and Oubliettes.
- Drinking Contest: A three-way Federation-Klingon-Equestrian drinking contest, no less. No prizes for guessing how that ends.
- Eat Dirt, Cheap: The silicon-based Ensign Naraht doesn't eat anything from the Pie's rock farm... but he certainly wants to, once he discovers the variety and quality of the rocks on offer.
- Expy Coexistence: In chapter 2, Discord meets Q, the character from Star Trek: The Next Generation on whom he was based.
- Fantastically Indifferent: Ditzy Doo doesn't seem to notice or care about any of the oddities of Discord's chaos realm while she's delivering his mail.
- Fantasy Helmet Enforcement: Even if you're a magical alicorn princess riding a super-advanced shuttle into space, you still gotta wear a seat belt.
- Fascinating Eyebrow: In chapter 18, Sunset tries to stop Trixie from doing them in emulation of Spock, whom Trixie idolizes. However, they end up employing the gesture for real anyway after Twilight
- Flanderization: In-universe example: Discord complains to Sisko that ever since he introduced the Bajoran Prophets to baseball as a temporal metaphor, they now don't seem to use anything else.Discord: Actually, now that I think about it, what happens if the timeline's changed a bit too much for your liking?
Pinkie Pie-Prophet: We shall deal with the changes to the playbook, and set the game back on its course.
Discord: Wow. You really hammered in the whole 'baseball' thing, didn't you. - Flashback Cut: Chapter 17 briefly flashes back to Twilight making a fool of herself after she learns that Cadance and Shining Armor are having a baby.
- Foreshadowing: Kirk's first log entry uses the metaphor of waking a sleeping dragon. A few chapters later, he learns that this could be more literal on Equus than he intended.
- Friendly Address Privileges: You can practically make a drinking game of it.
- Genre Savvy: Spike gets suspicious when Sunset invites Twilight over to her universe without explaining why, as it sounds to him a lot like a typical comic-book villain trap. It turns out that Sunset's only being cryptic because, well, finding out that your fictional heroes are real is a bit difficult to explain in a letter.
- Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: One of the effects of Equus is enhanced friendliness; anyone in its proximity feels a greater tendency to be friendly toward others, even those they normally wouldn't get along with.
- Glove Slap: Blueblood throws a handkerchief at Kirk rather than slapping him with a glove (since ponies don't have hands), but it has the same effect of initiating a challenge to a duel.
- If I Had a Nickel...:Celestia: Truth be told, if I had a bit for every time I wanted to shoot Discord, I could buy both Earth and Q'onos and have enough left over for some cake.
- I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: Unsurprisingly, Doctor McCoy gets several of these:
- Bones' opinion on the Castle of Friendship:
McCoy: I'm a doctor, Jim, not an architect!- Later, at the duel between Kirk and Blueblood:
McCoy: Dammit, Jim. I'm a doctor, not a fight coach!- And even one with Princess Cadance:
McCoy: I'm a doctor, Cadance, not an ambassador.- Trixie gets one too, although she is imitating McCoy when she does it:
Trixie: Dammit, Sunset! I'm a magician, not a secretary! - Informed Obscenity:
- Fluttershy uses the word "peeved" (established in Friendship is Magic as an Equestrian swear word) and immediately apologizes for it.
- Equestrian profanity in general seems to consist of bowdlerized versions of English swear words. This is due to the fact that Friendship is Magic is TV-Y, so that's all they could get away with.
- Klingons Love Shakespeare:
- Literally, in this case — Kang and Mara both know and enjoy Shakespeare, even considering the Klingon translation to be the definitive version.
- Sunset Shimmer, originally a unicorn from Equestria, became a huge Star Trek fan after living in the Equestria Girls universe for several years.
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Twilight has never heard of Star Trek... but Sunset and Trixie have.
- Life Energy: The advanced sensors of the Enterprise are able to detect the energy that makes up Celestia and Luna's astral forms.
- Meaningful Name: Discussed, as some of the visitors notice that Equestrians tend to have suspiciously apt names.
- Multicultural Alien Planet: Equestria is recognized as the most powerful nation on Equus, but certainly not the only one.
- Mythology Gag:
- Pinkie Pie is the first pony met by the Enterprise crew, and her reaction is exactly the same as her first meeting with Twilight Sparkle in Friendship is Magic.
- Kirk initially mistakes the alternate dimension of Equestria Girls for the evil Mirror Universe from Star Trek.
- After seeing that Sunset Shimmer has ascended to alicornhood, Twilight tells her "You've come a long way" - echoing the same words Celestia said to Twilight upon her ascension.
- Blueblood arrives at the duel with Kirk in a Red Shirt.
- On experiencing the Federation's artificial gravity for the first time, Twilight comments that she knows some gravity manipulation spells - likely a reference to "The Crystal Empire", in which she uses a gravity-inversion spell to quickly ascend a very tall staircase.
- Twilight tells Sulu to "make it so" after he offers to take them on a short warp flight out of the Equus system.
- Twilight accidentally pokes herself in the eye while trying to perform the Pinkie Promise ritual, the same mistake that she made in "Green Isn't Your Color".
- The Bajoran Prophets refer to Discord as "The Discord", in the same way that they referred to Benjamin Sisko as "The Sisko" in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
- Never Gets Drunk: Rainbow Dash is able to handle all of the alien drinks brought to Equestria by the Federation and the Klingons without the least bit of inebriation, leaving even the Klingons impressed by her iron constitution.
- Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Kirk deliberately taunts Kang by accusing him of cowardice when he becomes reluctant to challenge the Klingon Empire.
- Non Sequitur, *Thud*: After rapidly consuming several Federation, Klingon, and Equestrian drinks in a row, Chekov manages to make a nonsensical request before promptly collapsing.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Both Kirk and Kang see elements of their cultures reflected in Equestria, suggesting that the Federation and the Klingons aren't as dissimilar as they like to believe.
- Out-of-Genre Experience: The story is framed like an episode of Star Trek, but in Chapter Eight, Uhura finds herself instigating a My Little Pony-style musical number without any warning. Even she can't explain what happened.
- Paradise Planet: Equus is presented this way - clean air, friendly inhabitants, benevolent rulers who maintain peace and harmony.
- Physical God: Celestia, Luna, and Cadance are all implied to be this. It's implied that their physical forms are only avatars, and that their true selves aren't visible to mortals. Celestia is even comfortable rubbing shoulders with the Bajoran Prophets, who are godlike in their own way.
- Plug 'n' Play Technology: Averted - usually Federation and Klingon technology would be incompatible, but Spock anticipated working with the Klingons and specifically adapted the Enterprise's science station to accommodate their technology.
- Power Nullifier: Blueblood has Celestia cast a spell on him to nullify his unicorn magic, allowing him to fight in a fair duel against Kirk.
- The Power of the Sun: It doesn't escape the Klingons' attention that Celestia could very easily incinerate their entire fleet with a solar flare, if she chose to.
- Reading Ahead in the Script: Sunset's detailed knowledge of Star Trek canon means that she knows every detail about the Federation, including things that haven't happened yet.
- Reality Warper: Mara attempts to shoot Discord after he startles her, but her disruptor inexplicably becomes a water pistol due to Discord's chaos magic.
- Recursive Canon: The story suggests that the setting of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic exists within the universe of Star Trek - but at the same time, Star Trek turns out to be fictional within the neighboring universe of Equestria Girls.
- Retcon: The Beta XII-A entity from the Star Trek episode "Day of the Dove" is explained to be a rogue windigo (an emotion-eating spirit from Equestria).
- Scientifically Understandable Sorcery: Celestia and Luna's control of the sun and moon are explained as some kind of gravity/energy manipulation.
- Silicon-Based Life: Ensign Naraht is a Horta, a silicon-based being from the original series. Naturally, he's called in to assist with negotiations at the Pie family's rock farm.
- Squee: Sunset and Trixie are huge Star Trek fans.
- Stations of the Canon: Mentioned as having been ruthlessly tossed in the trash can in the author's note of chapter 15. But only as canon applies to the movies starting with Wrath of Khan.Author: Stations of canon? Yeah... we're of the rails now, motherbucker!
- Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: Spock and Mara speculate - accurately - that Celestia and Luna are more than the physical beings they present themselves as.
- Sufficiently Advanced Technology: Ayelborne implies that advanced humanoid technology and Equestrian magic are essentially the same thing.
- Suicidal Overconfidence: Blueblood seems absolutely sure he can defeat an alien that he's only just met in combat. It later turns out that the odds are very much not in his favor.
- Take a Third Option: Kirk and Kang both seem convinced that only one of them can win the favor of Equestria. Celestia and Luna, of course, know that that's not how things work in a land of friendship.
- Teeth Flying: Scotty punches a yak in the face and knocks one of its teeth out.
- Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Blueblood challenges Kirk to a battle of honor.
- Trial by Combat: Kirk (naturally) gets into one with Prince Blueblood.
- Unstoppable Mailman: Even if you live in a completely different chaos dimension where the laws of reality don't apply, Ditzy Doo will still find a way to deliver mail to you. She even asks Discord - Lord of Chaos and the only draconequus known to exist - to confirm his identity before signing the package over to him.
- Verbal Tic: Captain Kirk's speech makes heavy use of ellipses to emulate William Shatner's infamous style of line delivery.
- Vocal Dissonance: When speaking, Prince Rutherford sounds like a typical yak: loud, boorish, and aggressive. In writing, however, he comes across as perfectly courteous and eloquent.
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: The Pie Family's rock farm is full of "weeds" - which turn out to be incalculably valuable deposits of dilithium crystals, the things that make starships go.
- Worthy Opponent: Kang sees Kirk as this. While they are not friends, Kang respects Kirk greatly and considers him a man of honor, a high compliment from a Klingon.
- You Do Not Want To Know: Mara tries to enquire into Pinkie's logic-defying feats, but Twilight hurriedly stops her, since she's been down that road before.
