Orion Skies

By Dsanders

• July 1, 2013




Age: 20

Gender: Male

Species: Earth Pony

Appearance: Orion is a young adult stallion of reasonably average height and physique. His main physical strengths mostly come from his speed and endurance. He's close to slim but not skinny. <br /><br />His overall coat is a medium shade of brown, and his eyes are a bright emerald green color. His mane and tail consist of stripes of light brown and dark olive green. His mane in the front is medium length and shaggy, and his tail is rather long and unkempt.<br /><br />He often carries a confident expression of boldness and daringness (as seen in his profile picture) when he is by himself. See personality for more details.<br /><br />He is now almost always seen wearing a pair of mechanical steam-punk styled wings, which allows him to fly despite being merely an Earth Pony.

Cutie Mark: Orion Skie's cutie mark consists of two blue curved S-shaped lines with an arrow going through them diagonally. <br /><br />The curved S-shaped lines represent and stand for steam and his extraordinary skill in utilizing that source of energy. The arrows represent motion which in turn, represent Orion's more deeper and profound talent in understanding all the physics and mechanics behind any form of movement.<br /><br />Altogether, the cutie mark ultimately symbolizes Orion's remarkable and intuitive abilities in understanding and using steam energy to his and everypony else's benefit.

Personality: Orion's is normally a shy but genuinely kind stallion. He didn't used to be the type to talk much, but he always found it easier to sympathize with others in distress and see their problems as if they were his own. He has always been quite good at reaching out to others and cheering them up once he finally steps out of his own comfort zone. <br /><br />He hates fights and arguments and always tries his best to stay out of them. He also used to abhor being the center of attention and would rather be in total peace and enjoy time to himself. However this was a major obstacle for him and he knew that it wouldn't help him in achieving his business goals or help fulfill his vision for the future. So he is slowly breaking out his anti-social shell and plans on becoming more active within the community.<br /><br />He often enjoys his spare time, studying and reading and can at times, appear very zealous about it. He mostly enjoys the subjects of astronomy and physics, which in turn, benefits him in understanding the principles of motion and energy. He likes to incorporate whatever new piece of information that he can find into his latest inventions.<br /><br />He also likes to travel and often enjoys it just as much, if not a little more than the time spent in his studies.<br /> <br />One of the big reasons he likes to travel and explore, other than for the sake of meeting new ponies and for the fun experience, is because he wishes to expand his business in selling his inventions. He dreams of changing Equestria technologically, wishes to push it forward economically and has hopes that someday his inventions will become commonplace and greatly benefit everypony's lives equally. <br /><br />Though he is quite introverted and shy when first meeting new company, once he reaches a level of decent comfort, he can be very friendly and maybe a little bouncy on some rare occasions.<br /><br />Over the recent years his shyness has been fading away drastically, and he can be seen trotting about with a strong aura of confidence which is essential to have in order to achieve his technological and economical goals to help the pony community grow as a whole through his new and gradually growing business. <br /><br />Overall, he is content and profusely happy with the friends and opportunities he has and tries to enjoy all the wonders that his life has to offer.

Backstory: Orion Skies was born into a life of luxury. His mother was a unicorn and his father was a pegasus. They both worked full time jobs as psychologists, in fact they among the most recognizable and renowned in Canterlot and as a result, his parents were amongst the richest in Canterlot, and with their wealth, they provided Orion with one of the best and finest homes in the city.<br /><br />Though he was born an Earth pony(oddly), he always had a deep fascination with the idea of flying. He always enjoyed watching all the pegasus ponies freely fly through the deep blue and clear skies.<br /> <br />For most of his childhood, he was home schooled. His main study area was the main library within the home. It was one of the largest libraries in Canterlot. Everyday, Orion would read as many books as he could. He would read all day long, from morning to night. Reading and learning were amongst his greatest passions. He especially enjoyed reading about science and would often get immersed in reading stuff on physics and chemistry. He was an avid reader and by reading alone, he soon found himself understanding physics, math, and engineering at the same level as most college students around the age of 12. <br /><br />He eventually began conducting countless experiments in the library, involving utilizing different forms of energy. From wind power, to solar power, and even electricity to some degree. He failed in many of those experiments and couldn't understand why he wasn't able to get the following energies working properly. <br /><br />All his frustrations soon came to an end when one day, Orion was looking peacefully out the main library window, closely observing all the large and plentiful clouds in the sky. He remembered reading about how water has 3 main states(water, ice, and steam/vapor), and soon enough, that's when a light bulb finally hit him. Steam.<br /><br />He tried studying and researching as much as he could on how he could use steam as an efficient source of energy, but unfortunately he couldn't find any sort of information. It didn't even exist. So he decided to figure it all out by himself. After numerous experiments, though having failed several times, he managed to find more success in his experiments than failure. <br /><br />His experimentation soon lead him into making early prototype inventions and testing them out, and to his surprise, many of them work. One of his first successful inventions was a steam-powered clock. Eventually he made a mini steam-powered toy car, and then some steam-powered rockets(the failures of getting this to work right, were rather chaotic).<br /><br />As he grew older, he began to realize and notice just how restrictive his parents were. Not only did they want to keep him in home school, but they absolutely did not want him to go outside. He didn't understand why and he was utterly shocked to find out that his parents did not approve of their only colt having such freedom. At first, his parents were very reluctant in explaining their reasons to him, but after a relentless round of arguments with Orion, they finally gave in and told him why. <br /><br />It turns out that Orion Skies used to have a little sister named Little Dipper before he was even born. His parents used to take her out to the park playground every day after lunch. She was always cheerful and offered to play with any filly and colt that appeared lonely, as his parents told him. Then one day at the park, when his parents were watching Little Dipper as she was having fun at the park bouncing her favorite red ball that she used to bring along with her sometimes ... she vanished ... right before their very eyes. It was all so sudden as his parents explained. They tried to contact the authorities but to no avail. Nopony could explain this phenomenal event and Orion's parents eventually came to the conclusion that she was foalnapped by a unicorn. <br /><br />He was 15 when his parents told him this. The memories still haunt him to this day. Any mentioning of the world "siblings" makes him feel emotionally uncomfortable. <br /><br />Orion was shocked and in immense disbelief at first upon hearing the news. He couldn't believe that he had a younger sister who disappeared before he had even gotten a chance to know her. He cried for a good amount of time. Once he had finally soaked in all if this new information and accepted this new perception of his own reality and situation, he had a much better understanding as to why his parents restricted him, but he still tried to argue against it, saying that that does not necessarily mean they have to keep him locked up like this. But it was useless, his parents loved him too much and they couldn't afford to lose their only colt. They told him that he couldn't leave until he was 25. <br /><br />A year passed and the day came when he finally finished reading every single last book in the library. He learned and studied all he could, and his inner sense of freedom and exploration was really beginning to take over. From the age of 16, he got into even more countless arguments with his parents, begging them to allow him to go to a real public high school and go out and hang out with real friends for once. Unfortunately, his parents were stubborn and refused to listen to any of his pleas. Orion understood that it was all out of love but he still didn't think it was right and necessarily logical that they do this to him.<br /><br />Orion was beginning to get sick and tired of being stuck in the huge library all day long. Although his parents loved him deeply, the way they expressed it was not right in Orion's eyes. In addition, they were also quite distant as they both worked for at least 10 hours a day. They always left him with a caretaker but she never seemed to be in the mood for a conversation. For the first time ever, he began feeling lonely and depressed. He found himself looking out the window more often than ever before. His attention was especially on all the Pegasus ponies. For hours he would watch all of the Pegasus ponies fly around and have fun. It was their ability to fly and soar, their ability to go freely to where the other subspecies of ponies couldn't, that really amazed Orion. He was getting a little jealous... he wished he had wings of his own. He needed wings to get as far away from here as he could. <br /><br />That was when another idea came to his mind. He had a thorough and highly advanced understanding of physics and motion, and thus, he took full advantage of it. He decided to built himself a pair of mechanical and fully functional wings.<br /><br />It took him a year of countless failures, dedication, research, studying, experimenting with numerous old scraps in the basement, and hiding it all from his parents, to finally come up with a working prototype. With a wingspan of 30 feet, the ability to fold up, retract, and expand at his control, a built in mini steam engine for propulsion, and a complete maneuver capability, he knew that it was ready for flight.<br /><br />He spent a week testing it out, staying up late at night and even sneaking outside with his parents sound asleep. After a few rough failures, he managed to get the hang of the basic liftoff and maneuvering techniques. He also felt complete elation upon having stepped outside for the first time in an eternity.<br /><br />With great success, one night, with the main library window completely opened, Orion Skies took off. He felt great. He didn't even know or care about where he was heading. He was feeling the greatest he's ever felt in his entire life. He finally achieved flight, and for the first time ever, he had full freedom. No limits whatsoever...<br /><br />He was free, and he realized that with his great gift in utilizing steam power, that he could make a difference in the world. That night was also the night he finally earned his cutie mark. He knew that it was only a matter of time before he could make his legacy in Equestria.<br /><br />He was free to travel, free to explore, and free to live out the wonders his life had in store for him.<br />