Identity

by jaked122

Rating: teen
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Random, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Main 6, Romance, Original Character, Comedy
Length: 23567

The singularity is coming

With the development of the scientific method, it is impossible to avoid the advance of technology. Naturally, this all comes with many upheavals and social upsets, but where can it go?

Published 2013-05-10 10:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-06-03 16:40:20 UTC

Responsiveness

Twilight, having finished reading the essay that the doctor had presented her with, stared at him. His dark blue coat seemed out of place standing on the white marble bricks of the court’s floors. She briefly considered asking him to stand on the tri-symbol that Equestria had adopted after her own ascension, it would look better on the purple side. His glasses were foggy, strange considering the relatively dry air. They were horn rimmed; in a more literal sense than was typically observed in horn rimmed glasses.

“What is your point, Doctor? Why would you want this to go unpublished? It isn’t recommending anything beyond putting a few restraints on your new technology. Restraints, that, while perhaps a bit beyond the minimum which we feel must be enacted for the public good, are very persuasive.”"Princess. This is a travesty upon my work. This fool is a danger to my work. You must see what I mean by that." The scholar's fears were fairly reasonable, not to mention that Twilight had already decided on the course of action for this technology. However, the doctor's arguments were far weaker than the essay which he had come to protest.

"Doctor, even in the short term, this technology, no matter how wonderfully it works, is a danger to the very fabric of our society. Thus, I deem it necessary to restrict this for government usage." Twilight batted her eyes at the doctor, whose expression was a sight to behold. She decided that she would remember his reaction forever. "I will take it upon myself to recompense you for every bit that I deem your invention worth. Fortunately, your invention seems like it will pay off fairly well.” The doctor still looked terrified.

“Why?” he asked. He trembled with the typical mixture of emotions that most ponies showed after failing to recieve what they attempted to petition for; a well deserved mix of anger and fear.

“Because, My fellow regents are the only ones who may live forever. To offer a second choice is to break down the whole hierarchy of wisdom that our society is not only based upon, but thrives on. If others live for thousands of years, then they are also able to govern just as well. They know the restraint that we do. And that means that rebellion is going to be imminent. Of more immediate importance is the limited supply of food that the entire planet can cultivate successfully. Population growth is incompatible with this technology, if that stops, then so does production of new ideas. Do you want a stasis? Because that would be worse than living in absolute chaos!” Twilight exhaled.

“This is a touchy subject for me. Do not press me further on this. Once your research is complete, and your various animal testing is completed to your satisfaction, you will hand over your research, your equipment, and you will never set hoof in a laboratory.” She paused for a moment. “Unless you are working for the me directly.”

His ears perked up. “Is that a job offer, Princess Twilight?”

The purple Alicorn nodded. “There will be further restrictions upon what you are allowed to do, but I believe that the research you will do for us will be satisfactory to you.”

He nodded. “I agree. For Equestria, correct?”

Twilight repressed a laugh. Although, it was unclear to her why it came across as a funny statement. “I suppose so, if that is what will motivate you the best.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Please get out. I will contact you once you finish relocating your research here. You are the only one who has this offer, not your team. To them, this research was suddenly a dead end.”

“They've seen it work.” Silence hung in the air, as did the smell of lunch. Twilight cursed silently. Nachos. It was going to be a long night. She could already see Celestia running to the food court, stuffing herself with them.

“That will be quite troublesome then. I might have to take up your team myself. I do not hand out personal favors lightly, doctor.”

“Should you know my name?” He quaked. It was kind of cute, however it almost made Twilight laugh.

“What kind of question would that be?”

“Is it important to you that I am an individual?”

“I suppose that it is my duty to care for you as a ruler of this realm. Tell me your name, as much fun as it has been playing cold-heartless ruler with you, I’m afraid that I should probably not cultivate that impression of me.” The princess smiled softly.
The unicorn shifted very uncomfortably. It was clear that he was either new to such things as politics, or he was absolutely terrified of girls. Given his profession, it would not be unreasonable to assume both. His dark blue coat did not lend itself to showing persperation, but Twilight could still detect the all too strong smell of it wafting about the air.

“I do care about you. I’m sorry about that, but it was entertaining to watch your reaction. Always something new, especially from you academics. Anyway, please do tell me your name.”

“Frenzy Idea”

“You know what, that name doesn’t quite sound right. Also, what kind of pony do you take me for?”

The scientist nodded. “I’m not one to say anything about that.”
“Which of my responses? The first or the second?”
“Both.”

The alicorn looked up towards a clock on the far side of the court room.

“It seems that our time is up. Don’t trust anypony else with this who isn't on your team. If you have a wife, tell her that the university cut your funding. Just make sure that nopony will follow up your research, or do as much as possible to that end.” There was a smile that flashed over her face. “But most of all, don't worry about it.”

Author's Note

So yeah, I downvoted myself. What can I say, I'm not good enough to try writing this sort of thing.

Performance

“Why did you stop your research?” Textom the Invincible glared over the bare plates at him, her red eyes peering deep into the doctor's soul. Sometimes Frenzy wondered why he loved her.

“It wasn't working out proper...” The sentence died as Textom the Invincible raised her eyebrows at him.

“That's not what you had said before. You claimed that your research was working out wonderfully, with various successes and otherwise useful benchmarks of its usefulness.” Her anger transitioned to a more open emotion. Her red coat glimmered in the dim light of the candles.

“I’m sorry honey. I loved how happy your success made you. I’m not really one to talk. I haven't done all that much that I can really tell you about.” Frenzy shuddered. Textom’s work was not sort of thing which nice ponies did.

“Actually, are you sworn to secrecy to the Princesses as well?” he said. If there was a way out, he had to take it.

“Yes. Sometimes. You know that I can keep a secret.” Her rarely seen smile appeared once again. Sometimes Frenzy knew why he married this incredibly frightening mare. The sense of comfort was quickly replaced by the void of indecision. If he were to go through with it, as much as he trusts Textom, Frenzy knew that to go against the desires of the princesses was almost like, no, actually it was just treason.

“I can't really decide now. I trust you, but...” The words died off and Textom’s eyes became very hard.

“Trust can't be voluntary.” She said, before leaving the room. The dark blue unicorn sighed. There must be time for absolution later, there will need to be adjustments made in the meantime to account for the cowardice of indecision. There would be better ways to handle this kind of thing in the future, but at the moment, decisions needed making. And more importantly, he needed to comfort his wife. It would not do well for his wife to be the cause of his demise after all. He sighed again. There would be no easily sleep for him.

The glass was thick. Only a little thicker than most ponies. The thought came with a feeling of self-disgust.

Such thoughts were not suitable for the Princess of magic. Magic itself being related to the friendship and comradery which one feels with their fellows or subordinates, or really any form of life. To elevate oneself above the common ponies is to destroy yourself in their eyes. To think negatively of them for not having your abilities, or intelligence. To ever question the duty of either the strong or the smart to protecting the weak or the dumb is to willfully wish destruction on all of the loyal, loving subjects. But no, they are more than just subjects, they are potential friends, allies, or lovers. They are the potential for the development of the world, as are the peoples of other nations. All are to be respected for the chaos of life is preferable to the stasis of death. Even as a deathless being; living on a rock that was scoured clean by its own inhabitants sounds dreary.

But back to the glass. That was the interesting thing about this part of the castle. The rear parts. The ones that she had never known of, even while living inside the castle. The ones which the knowledge of was extended to the personel which worked in it and the princesses. Not Cadance though, she isn't quite right for the roles which the knowledge of it forces upon the knowing. The darkness of thousands of magical projects which in themselves merited secreting away from the citizen or denizen of Equestria. What would they do if they became aware that the power which their princesses used to maintain the world around them was also being used to make the weapons that none of them could even envision? They would know that there were ways to die that nothing on the world could possibly deserve.

More importantly, Twilight thought, they would know that there were ponies researching such abominable science, and from that would come the realization that they could potentially control a large portion of the world if they knew what existed.

The magic itself was more dangerous than Twilight had ever imagined possible. In the distance, in one of the many somewhat shielded cubicles that lined the interior of the mountain, she thought that she saw a burst of flame. After a second, lightning seemed to respond to the flame, mimicking it with unpleasant success.

Out of all the projects that would share the space inside the mountain, and find itself staring up at the two hundred meter tall cavern ceiling above it, there was only one that was connected directly to preserving life. And it was subject to the grander issue that all the others had; it would destroy utopia.

“Of all the thoughts and dreams that live in this place; only mine is concerned with saving life itself. Is it too great a cost?” She shook her head. “There is nothing that it would fail to wreck in time. It would ruin our fields and crowd our cities.”

But more importantly, it would make us nothing more than another example of immortal.

“I should talk to my friends again...” Twilight muttered. Three Months without contact. A year after you become a Princess, and you've already forgotten about them. It’s not your fault, it's the fault of the system. Just too much work.

What was she thinking? It was her fault. The sarcasm implicit in that thought was obvious enough, but the thoughts themselves were unlike her. Corrupt in a strong deviation from the sort that she was accustomed to. It was probably more about the work, there was a lot to be concerned or worried about as a Ruler. No wonder Celestia was so inscrutable. The sheer number of competing causes in her head pounded out at every decision that she made. Consideration for all ponies’ desires is not a good thing in a ruler. Indecision is the oblivion that endangers all around it.

It would be a good idea to visit her friends in Ponyville soon. The purple alicorn smiled. It was a good idea.

“I’m sorry, your highness, were you speaking to me?” The graying receptionist for the restricted projects area was only permitted as far as Twilight was at the moment. To go inside was not permissible. Receptionist was hardly the right term either; after all, nopony could get this close. Castle, if somepony reqested one of the various researchers, were instructed to ask her only after looking everywhere else. Concentric layers of secrecy have not failed the programs yet.

“No, but your dutyful consideration is well appreciated.” Though it does interrupt the train of thought.

The flickering florescent light underpinned the humming which pervaded the space. The ceiling that rose up forever, never reaching a visible terminus was rock. It was cold. The air was tinged with an unpleasant combination of rubbing alcohol and ozone. Suggesting a recent cleanup after some sort of unwholesome accident. The pervasive sense that this place was not only dangerous, but unnatural, completely removed any capability of Frenzy Idea’s team to concentrate.

“Does this mean that I finally get a raise?”

“Did sparklehauser really put us up to this?”

“Who in their right mind refers to Princess Sparkle as ‘Sparklehauser’?”

“Uh....”

“That’s what I thought. Anyway, we are going to continue our work, right?”

The darker unicorn felt that it was time to interrupt this interesting banter, mostly because he felt that he was the only one who knew the answer to this question. “Yes. We are here by the request of Princess Sparkle.”

“Why though? We were safe in the university. Probably more so than here.”

The dark blue unicorn sighed. “As much as I believe that you are right, we are here because our research is felt to be dangerous to society as a whole. I can’t quite place it, but Princess Sparkle has made herself very clear on this subject. I do not wish to be the one to defy her.”

“As much as I appreciate your desire to not defect from my will; you really don't have much to worry about. All I ask is for none of you to ever speak of your research again outside of this room, or with myself or another qualified official of the government. That is to say, me.”

“What about personal problems? Who do we talk to then?”

“I would imagine any of your friends. Just so long as you don’t mention the specifics, or the fact that you are working for me, it's okay.”

As quickly and abruptly as she entered, the princess of magic left the cubical. For some reason, the grey cubical suddenly felt very small.

“Who wants to get lunch?”

There was a conflagration of agreement before the cubical was once again left empty.The hum of the machines continued as though nothing had happened at all. The essence of peace had been shattered for all those who were present. Nothing save for the traditional lunch special at the university cafeteria would be enough to bring back a semblance of normality for the tortured academics.

If there was a time in which it was deemed acceptable to kill the ponies one was supposed to be protecting; this time would not be it. Unfortunately, as far as her employers were concerned; nopony in the team was considered an acceptable loss. Textom sighed. Her eyes gazed over the cafeteria, wondering what reason that her agency handed her this job. Apparently conflicts of interest weren’t valid enough reasons to hand it over to another, slightly less qualified mercenary.

The cafeteria was bustling. This is to be expected during the noontime hour at any given university; or anywhere else for that matter. Also to be expected are the influx of awkward college students. Though perhaps this is the cause of the bustling.

If anything, it was a “Target Rich” environment, Textom the Invincible thought, I wonder if my Agency would mind if I beat up a few college kids. She decided against it. At her level, it would be more like one of them beating up a colt in kindergarten. Despite the difference in skill, the one with the pimples and the cracking voice beckoned. She grimaced. Nothing good could come when she guards her own husband. She idly wondered who in their right mind would hire the agency for such a duty. Nopony cared about her husband; nobody who wanted to hurt him, nobody who wanted him dead, nobody who was jealous of him. He was a sad little colt.

That, however, was probably the irritation talking. Sometimes she wondered about him, but on a more average day, when she hasn’t watched him go up four times for chocolate milk, she could empathize more easily with his issues. Unfortunately her cognizance of her current condition did not render it any more amenable.

That college kid with pimples and the cracking voice has gone up for the chocolate milk eight times. It would be nice to take care of her frustration through the suitable surrogate which she sees in the boy, but that would likely have her thrown out of the Agency’s pool of available agents.

The laminate flooring here reflected the light of the fluorescent lights which provided a reasonable level of light. The student’s and faculties’s conversations mixed until at last it averaged to a constant buzz. The white and black tiling created strange fractals which seemed to resolve down into infinite tiling, appearing as a strange wrinkle in her vision. The floor, she decided, was not something to get lost in.

The room was almost empty. A brown janitor pony in blue overalls mopped the floor with an absolute diligence that would surely qualify him as the best at his job. Textom realized that she was had lost that touch today. Perhaps guarding her husband would be a lesson in nothing except handling boredom. For the first time Textom the Invincible, bodyguard to Fleur, perhaps half the royal family at various points, and vanquisher of Rolack the Duck, suddenly knew that war was boredom punctuated by terror. This appeared to be one of those run-on sentences.

The light bounced off the hanging picture in the cubicle, obscuring it to all eyes. If it had not been obscured, the research team would see a picture of Textom, smiling at a camera, presumably behind which stood Frenzy. The team would not know her. And if they did catch a peak of it as one of the lights flickered starlike overhead, there would be plenty of excuses.

That was, of course, the justification that Frenzy Idea used in his decision to move this picture to his... lab, if such a large cavern with a cubicle and insufficient lighting could really qualify as such.

It was not suitable for the nature of research that was being carried out.

The sounds of various creatures that should not exist carried through the lab every few minutes before being dispelled back into whatever plane they called their home. Occassionally, the lighting even flickered as one of the various containment aparati stuggled to contain something.

Every flicker of the lights caused a pause as they waited to seee if it would be the end of the world as they knew it. Thele lab equipment stood steady to the flickering. The displays held constancy in line as the various lines and movements completed their scans across the screens.

Although the team felt a sense that their project was out of place here; that the other researchers held them in disdain due to some variety of politics, but more importantly, it gave them purpose. Immense purpose. The highest purpose which they could imagine. Somehow, they remained deluded, believing that their technology would eventually see use in the populace.

They worked constantly, making more progress in a day than they had seen in a week. The antiseptic atmosphere, with the lingering certainty of containment breech became motivations for getting their research done as quickly as possible.

The lights continued humming after the team left, casting their light without caring about what they illuminate.

Author's Note

So yeah, the scariest(if I wrote her right), female character I could think of at the time. Also Textom the Invincible? Absolute genius.

PostPony

There was a pause.

Twilight shifted uneasily in front of the lab. Her face shifted as she tried to find an expression to capture the cause of a distraught ruler whose duty moved them to tell the researchers that the reality of the research would never be seen by the public.

She sighed. Twilight's face became grimmer, perhaps a bit more appropriate for the task at hoof. She would inform the researchers of the whole truth.

Immortality is fraught with dangers of megalomania. More dangerously, immortality, is fraught with the danger that such megalomania is actually reasonable. The lectures that Celestia and Luna had given her upon her ascension cast an expression of determination across her face.

Approaching the cubicle, the sounds of the researchers’ eager chatter fell upon her ears. Her expression shifted uncomfortably once again.

Twilight entered the cubicle. The scientists grinned at her.

“So Princess, what good news have you come to give to us today? Maybe we can start testing.” Frenzy Idea was the only one that could bear to look at her directly. The presence of the twelve other ponies standing there, avoiding her gaze, was far too much of a reminder that she was no longer like them. No more of the entirely impotent nerdy bookworm.

The grins turned into glares. Their eyes were hard and their expressions counted not as sadness, as Twilight had expected, but anger. In general, it was worse than she had expected.

It got worse. “You can’t get to that stage. This is too dangerous for our society. And perhaps, the entire world.”

All twelve of the ponies glared at her, directly, their eyes locking upon hers. Dozens of angers. Except for Frenzy, who stared at the rough stone floor disappointed.

Twilight strode out of the cubicle, pushed by anxiety and fear.

She struggled to contain tears. Dreams had resurged without consideration of posited reality. They had to be crushed, lest they turn into sedition.

Tears streamed down her face without consideration of such facts. The researchers heard hooves clacking in full gallop away from them. None of them thought much of the noises. The sounds of arguments began and died away as the lights flickered and cut.

The hum resumed its drone. The lights came back on. The researchers exhaled. Frenzy Idea felt a cold sweat on the back of his crest. Exactly as planned. The atmosphere was bitter from then on. The work cut into everypony's life, but now, it was useless; a dream of practical use turned to pure academia, worse, it was a tool of the power structures of the kingdom. It was surely going to be used in the future. If it was not going to be used to benefit the people themselves, then it was a threat, or a tool used to keep power, it would not lead to liberty.

The lights flickered again. Perhaps, it was that all of these things were weapons. In that case, who would want to develop them?

Twilight inhaled. She stood impassively near the door. She wiped her face. All that she once stood for, gone. Academics was once her life.

Who was she to take away her own life from these ponies? Twilight exhaled. Obviously she was a princess, a regent: a servitor and protector of the denizens of Equestria. Did that include ruining a few lives for the protection of the majority? Probably. Did this count as such an action? Only if the technology had the effect that the essay suggested.

She smiled. The hundred feet between her and the lab passed easily enough under this revelation. To confirm her speculation she would have to make use of this particular technology, it would have to be sly, quick, and hard to detect. Moreover, there would probably be bonus points added if it went well, or, on the other hoof, was properly cleaned up.

Experiment

Experiment

"Why would we help you?" The unicorn crossed back and forth. "You did take away our freedom to do science, your work has been done. And Then you've come to use with the announcement that, 'Sadly, Equestria is put in jeopardy if we continue our experiments to the conclusion.’ We wondered for a bit how you came to the conclusion, probably some kind of simulation, or perhaps even a kind of dream; you know, anything that actually speaks of your ability to make strong decisions and stick by them.” The glare from Frenzy was every bit as debilitating as anypony could be expected of.

Twilight's stomach sank. “You, are right. I am not that good at decision making yet, but of course, I need time to grow into this. You are lucky that you came around when you did. After all, I had just learned how to properly control my court. Now do me a favor, one that those sons of a bitch nobles never managed to achieve: give me a break. You should be glad that you have the opportunity to do anything of this sort already, let alone on a princess, if I was offered the same thing you are right now, I would have done it without a question. Besides, if I am wrong, this will be carried down to the bottom of Equestria society, revolutionizing everything. Your names will be carried forever, or perhaps with more power behind them than anypony else’.”

This managed to calm the glare a bit.

“What is your plan again?”

“Quite simply, try it out, have a few of me running around for, maybe a week, and see what happens.” Twilight attempted to make it sound casual. That never worked.

“I doubt that it will be that simple, princess. Your qualms about collective identity are, after all, such good points.” he sighed. “It’s even more frustrating because I understand where you are coming from. This could tear us all apart.”

“Perhaps it will, nevertheless, it would be wasteful not to try and find proper use for it. I doubt this will be it. I certainly hope not.”

“We’ll see Princess.”

The machines emitted a pleasing buzz as they worked through her brain, capturing states, vectors, probably a few tensors as well. It was invasive, it was easy to tell that there was something combing through the gnarled mess of neurons in the brain. It touched upon the horn and vanished.

A ‘plonk’ issued from a nearby machine, too indistinct to tell which.

“That seems to have worked well.” Frenzy Idea declared.

“We haven’t begun to test the real effects of it yet.”

“But the machines worked on the far more complicated pony brain, not just any, but yours. That means it should work on virtually anything.”

“I think you overestimate the complexity of an Alicorn’s brain. I’m not quite that smart anyway.”

“You’re probably right, otherwise you would have thought of trying this earlier, you know, before you took us in and told us that we were going to be spending the rest of our days talking to demon summoners.” That stung a bit.

“If you hadn't come to me, then it would not have happened at all, you would be trying it out elsewhere.” Twilight said. “Besides, one with such high security clearance should not be talking to and about royalty so callously.” Frenzy Idea smiled at her threat.

“You are not so powerful yet, besides, don’t try to guile me, I know enough about you to know that you aren’t that kind of pony.”

“Riight... You’ll have your test results in at the least a month.” The princess took the stone from the dispenser with magic and walked out of the cubicle. The ponies inside were less concerned with the potential results of the experiment carried out in this fashion, than the ponies they were probably expected to socialize with until the end of the experiment.

The cubicle was quiet until one of those ponies rushed past chased by a small legion of small red, bipedal demons with party favors.

“That guy actually looks like fun.”

Experiment log 23210:

As it turns out, demons are not pacified by party favors. Guess that this is the last time I end up doing that again.

Experiment log 23211:

Dammit. Project Tartarus Timeshare is unattainable, more reassuringly the wards are being dismantled after I take apart the portal.

“Why would you want to work with this sort of thing?” Twilight exclaimed. The vats around her bubbled and plastic veins pulsed under the unnatural rhythm of a pump, churning unnerving blood substitute.

The pale yellow pony smiled, “It’s all I know. I can hardly recall anything else in life. All that exists is biology. Pony biology is naturally the best. The hexocyclic helixies, the various bases, acids, all of which come together to form what we are.” He paused for a moment. “Mostly because cloning is cool.”

“Finally, that's as good a reason as any.”

“Yeah. Whatever chick.”

Twilight attempted to not give away the fact that this pony was arousing her, it worked quite well. “Stop your pseudo-scientific technobable, I have better things to do than be seduced by a creep whose only work is cloning the living.”

The vats bubbled, cloudy in the effluent and birthing fluid whose clarity was an illusory imitation of harmony.

“Don’t knock me till you try me.” He gestured towards himself using forehoof, wiggling an eyebrow.

“No.”

“Fair enough. Excuse me, your highness, but what was it that you wanted to ask of me?”

“Could you clone me, but in such a way I might turn out to be a Pegasus?”

“I’d actually have to check royal guidelines on that.” The pale, sickly looking earth pony pulled out a large tome entitled “Official Equestrian Policy on Cloning”.

“You know, once I doubted that such a book would ever exist. Unfortunately, it does seem to be the kind of book I would never want to read.”

“Being the Princess whose story captured the nation's mind, the nerdy little book-worm, and-” he looked at her from a different angle, “self-proclaimed, ‘Empress of Books’, that seems a bit surprising.”

“Well sometimes Fanfiction lies.”

“Not surprising. Not at all because you are also often referred to as the Princess of Fanfiction.” She had to resist the urge to either kill him or rape him at the mention of her unofficial, title amongst teenage mares and colts. More or less an ideal of what everypony could become, immortal, powerful, and more or less at peace with themselves.

This pony was too damn hot. But he would never know. Her eyes drifted to his flank, which had a fetus on it. The arousal went away. She struggled not to blanch.

“You know what Princess, it says here that Twilight Sparkle is able to contravene any policy in this book.” He grinned stupidly. “I bet that sounds good.”

“Yeah... “She tried not to puke. “Just do it, and notify me when the product is finished.”

“It already is.”

A vat glowed purple for a moment and discharged a familiar looking filly, without horn.

The filly smiled at her and locked the painfully large eyes upon hers. Twilight knew that this was going to be difficult.

“What? Did you want a fully grown one?” The stallion wiggled his irritatingly large eyebrow seductively. It didn't work.

“Yeah. I can't perform the necessary experiments upon this one. It's too damned cute.”

The eyes began to sparkle at her. “Damn.” she breathed. “That’s what I looked like as a filly. No wonder I wasn’t beaten up.”

“I think that can be arranged-” Twilight glared at Seductive Vat, “The adult clone, not you getting beaten up. Beaten off... maybe”

Twilight grimaced as the filly flew up into the air.

“That one though, is a completely independent entity from you, you should probably take care of it until it's mature enough for it to take care of itself.”

“Is that one of the rules I can ignore?”

“No, that’s in a different rule book, that called Ethical Treatment guidelines for Foals and Animals, as you might guess, it's Fluttershy's domain. You can of course, have her put up for adoption. Discreetly.”

“Please do that.”

Scarlett

Scarlet

“This will do quite nicely. This one is perfect.”

“It is the last one. I hope that you can excuse the high failure rate. I was working under pressure.”

“This makes up for it. She's just the right age.”

“And she'll live just as long as you would have if you hadn't become an Alicorn.”

“And she will not be free.”

“That's the downside.”

Eyes shot open. Electrodes buzzed and sparked. They were ineffectual.

Displays showed complex graph hierarchies representing a pony brain. The displays themselves were also ineffectual. A magic hand ran through the brain, rewiring it with all the subtlety of a microwave trying to tan a chicken. The pain was intense. But the recollection of it was slippery as quicksilver. There was not much hope for her. She decided with one of her last free thoughts. Of course, she was not so internally articulate. Nor did she understand language, or possess developed emotions. She was nothing. And so she returned to such a state.

Blackness engulfed her. And the mind was lost.

-

“Are you okay?”

“Of course I am. I'm Twilight Sparkle.” Eyes refused to clear. The blurriness of the vision was exacerbated by the closeness of whomever was looking at her.

“No, you are Scarlett. You are your own pony. You were born with my own memories, embedded in a Pegasus.”

“What would motivate me to give form to myself in amongst the most tortuous of all the species? My talent is useless.”

“You don't have a cutie mark. Magic as a talent is meaningless for a Pegasus. At least in its general form. We are not perfect. Both of us are flawed. This decision was made based on the ability to learn new ways of existence which could never be experienced before. You can go to Cloudsdale. You can go anywhere you want. Experience whatever life you want.”

But the freedom you will feel will just be the freedom I possess.

“But this is traumatic.”

“This is the kind of thing I decided we needed to get through, to find if it was salvageable enough to be worthwhile.”

“I understand that. I know that well enough.” The anger within her voice was as pure as anything else in the entire world.

“How much does this matter to you?”

“I am in the wrong body. I am the right color, my mane is the right shape, which means that you've had it cut to look like mine, and the cruelest part is that you've left me bereft of my element. What is magic, therefore friendship without the ability to use it?” Her voice quaked. The initial Twilight instance tried not to sympathize, but axioms must be self-supporting.

“It is the belief that friends will support you. That you will-“

“-Be safe in their hooves. That there will be no obstacle that stop you as a group of friends in the entire world.”

“Good. There are a few theories confirmed already. Namely that-“

“We still think in the same way in different bodies.”

“Come on. Did you expect any different outcome? My body rages with hormones designed to keep me moving faster than a unicorn, or earth pony, my heart pumps slower than yours ever did. And my brain is tormented by ancestral dreams of flight, all of which is perfectly attainable. You've made a monster out of me. I am cut from you, so you've budded into innumerable monsters.”

“Calm down. I've got our friends to come. Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy are willing to help us here.”

“And yet you've made me a monster, which you intend to present to your closest friends. What kind of monster are we?”

“The kind whose knowledge and fear for reputation has driven us to commit an atrocity upon ourselves.”

“And for once; the royal we is not just a figure of speech used to convey the unity of the citizens behind us.” Both instances laughed.

“Luna would probably like that.”

“Have you told Celestia or Luna yet?” The Alicorn instance looked away, indicating there was a high chance of a negative answer.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“The cloning experiments were unreasonable. The one that produced you took thirty-four tries, thirty-three of which mutated into monsters whose grin was full of evil gnarled teeth. Things that I would lose against in a fight. Things that had to be killed before they gained awareness. Terrors.”

“All this to torment yourself without feeling it?”

“I suppose so.”

“I'll give it a shot. I'll try something. It doesn't sound much better on your end anyway.”

“I'm in deep trouble.”

“And the only way out is to prove yourself right, and to clean up your mess first.”

“That is correct.”

The door started to swing open. And Rainbow walked in.

“Hey Twilight. Hi Scarlett. Are you okay? You look like you've been through Hay.”

“That would be one way to put it Rainbow Dash.”

Twilight walked out.

“How is it being the cousin of the Princess anyway?”

“I'm going to kill her.”

“I know the feeling. There was this one time when she wouldn't let me go into the Everfree to look for…” The story took on an epic twist as Rainbow Dash vilified Twilight all the while respecting her as the reason that she survived the encounter with the Golden OreWolf. Somehow it was insulting. “Twilight. You look somewhat worried. Is she doing okay?”

“Yeah. She'll live. I'm just not sure I've made the right decision.”

“What do you mean, s-she's recovering in the hospital, from an accident that you had no hoof in, right?”

“Yeah. There's something else.”

“I'm sure you'll share it. I mean, if it is comfortable for you.”

Twilight smiled. “She's a lot like me. Though she still doesn't have her cutie mark.”

“I’m just wondering, but would you mind, I don’t know, explaining why that is to me?”

“You'll find out soon enough, Fluttershy.”

“I hope not. She seemed so agitated when she was talking with you.”

There was a sudden outburst of laughter that came from the room.

“I think that she's going to do just fine.”

“I think so too.”

“Rainbow Dash. If it wouldn't trouble you too much, would you teach me how to fly?” Rainbow dash laughed before agreeing. There was a difference between them already. Good… Kind of.

“She's doing just as I had hoped she would” Twilight beamed. Fluttershy smiled, as content as any goose pleased with her young would be.

Perhaps this marks a treacherous spot in the road. And yet, it is more satisfying than simply having a clone of your mimic your motions throughout the day. That progress on the merging of memories should be accelerated. Otherwise this will be a project on population expansion. The orignal Twilight instance, whose uptime was greater than the other decided that she would let this develop as it would. Divergence cannot be too bad.

In the week that followed, Scarlett was able to get outside the stifling environment of the hospital. She found herself spending a lot of time with Rainbow Dash. The flights that she went on were fast, difficult, but ultimately the desire to keep up with Rainbow Dash pushed her to become developed enough to follow without being lost.

“Race you.”

“Dash, you are so predictable.”

“Am not.”

“Whatever, you’re on.”

“See you at the finish line, dork.”

They shot forwards off the ground. Scarlett, now used to her new name, pushed her wings harder, the muscles in her back burnt a bit less than normal. She grinned, she might just catch up to the Rainbow Wonder after all. The air that flowed into her eyes stung, causing her to tear. She looked to the side. The countryside was bathed in the bright yellow light of midday. The trees were still defiantly green, however. “I wonder how I missed this before.”

Then she crashed into Rainbow Dash, sending them tumbling into said trees. This is nice, Scarlett thought. “Scarlett, recover!” she shook her head. It sounded reasonable. She pulled out of the spin. “I can’t imagine why I forgot that.”

“You are about as bad at recovering as Twilight is. Your family does seem to run quite strong in you. You look almost exactly like her.”

“Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if I’m some sort of clone.”

“Me too! It’d be just like that one time in Daring Doo.”

The conversation became lively at that point, with rainbow dash jumping up in the air, pounding down, and other such things because it was cool.

After around a few minutes of this, she got into the science behind it. Or at least the author's own pseudoscience.

“Dash, that doesn't quite sound right. I don’t think that's how clones work.”

“What are you talking about, they're always just like the original in every way, they even share the same memories.”

Scarlett attempted to calm herself. Sadly, that sort of thing suddenly was out of reach of her best efforts.

“Thats... Not right.”

“How would you know?”

“Am I the same pony as Twilight?”

“No. Obviously not, you're cool, but not in the way Twilight is. Also, you're not obsessed with books and various minutae of magic.” Scarlett raised an eyebrow. “What, can't I use fancy words too? Besides, you aren't her clone. Why would she want a clone made anyway? She's going to live forever, isn’t that enough of a legacy?”

“You are right.”

“About what?”

“Hey, so that depiction of Azquital in Daring Doo, what does that represent?”

“Obviously the griffons during the second Griffon-Equestria war.”

“That’s very strange Rainbow Dash.”

“Yeah, not as weird as that one with the goo monster.”

“You mean the pornographic one?”

“Scarlett, I know that you're generally more of an egghead than I am, but it's called erotica.”

Twilight looked upon Scarlett with a deep interest. She levitated a ballpoint pen to a notebook that was already filled with the arcane diagrams that most ponies, would call doodles. “Hmm. She is diverging more quickly than I thought.”

“I'm sorry Your Highness, but when you're talking to yourself, you don't make a very good attendant at your own damned court.”

Twilight looked up. Antimonious sulfide, a mining magnate, whose name did not, in fact, mean all that much, was looking at her gruffly. He was not the sort of stallion you could see dancing around an issue. “Celestia Almightly, I thought that you were made into a Princess 'cause you weer so damned useful.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “I'm sorry, there are many more things that I must attend to that you will, if I have any say in the matter, never hear about.”

“That’s a fine speech you have there, unfortunately, it doesn't include the part about how my mining company can't figure out where you’re trying to go with your environmental policy. First you go and make your friend Fluttershy ‘baroness’ of the Everfree forest, putting all of us honest land-owners to shame with the amount of mineral and biological wealth that she could potentially extract from that there place.”

“You really don't understand do you? I’m in the middle of something more important than a commercial rivalry, especially one that will never exist, Fluttershy has no plans to do anything of that sort.”

“She’s already exporting fish from the river, gold from the stones, and whatever else she can get her damned hooves on.”

“Sure, now you have half the land.”

“Thank ya missy, and I was hearing so much complaining about you. Nothing but moan and whining from my investors about your policies.”

“I appreaciate your compliment, but you are still distracting me.”

“Well far be it from me to tell a Princess how to act.”

“That’s why I would appreciate it if you left.”

“But I can't stop praising you till you realize what you've done wrong.”

“Let me guess, you would like a share of the income tax on Equestria?”

“No. Well that would be nice, but that's not what I’m trying to tell you.”

“Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

“You understand that I was not complaining that your friend has dominion over it, I was complaining that she is exploiting it, what you probably meant to do was have her manage the animals, monsters and all inside the forest, what she's doing is exploiting its resources. You gave her the mineral and work rights to it, while you probably intended to give her forest management and wildlife care. After all, it is the only undeveloped piece of land in Equestria, and you probably want to keep it that way for now.”

“It’s not undeveloped, it's just filled with rampant magical energy that has corrupted the wildlife in unpredictable ways.”

“Whatever missy. It's wealth is untapped. If you give a friend a piece of unclaimable land, you had better make sure that you understand the economic implications of what you do.”

“The land was tapped. Look at the ruins. You can't take stuff from there though.”

“Ruins or not, there is wealth waiting to be claimed.”

“There are reasons that the region is shunned.”

He winked. “I wouldn't place much trust in such legends and rumors.”

“I would.”

“Well then it seems that we have reached an impasse here.”

The argument lasted for hours.

Solemnity

Solemnity

“I won’t fund your project.”

“But it would be of great use to magical studies.”

“It would run trillions of bits for a useful spell every decade.”

“It would allow spells of greater complexity than exist at the moment.”

“That’s because we can cut through complexity.”

“I don’t see where you get your information. That’s not how magic works.”

“You see this tiara, this is the element of magic. I wear it because I am Magic!”

“Why don’t you help us then, build us a few spells from time to time?”

“I’m busy with this, for the most part. Also science.”

“But you are magic, doesn’t that mean that you can do a lot more with it than I can?”

“Maybe. Trixie, why are you wasting my time?” The light blue mare with dark violet eyes looked downtrodden. Not quite as bad as after that whole Alicorn Amulet incident.

“I’m bored Twilight. There hasn’t been anything dangerous around for a few years. You’ve done too well.” Twilight rolled her eyes.

“There have been twelve wars over the last six weeks.” Trixies mouth hung open.

“Why haven’t I heard about any of this?”

“They each lasted half a week.”

“Why did you not call The Great and Humble Trixie to entertain the troops?”

“They were too busy watching the fire of the other nations splash ineffectually against their shields.”

“What?”

Twilight shook her head and put on her best benevolent ruler expression. It was going to be a long court session.
.

After a few minutes of explaining it further, her magic being used to make their troops more durable than ever, Trixie understood and applied for an internship in the labs that developed the techniques. Twilight decided that it would have to go through. Trixie was too good for anything else.

Antimonious Sulfide entered the room, with an all too smug look on his face. “So, your Highness, I see that you still haven’t done anything about Fluttershy.” Twilight’s eyes snapped open.

“I forgot. I’ll go take care of it immediately.”

It was right. And she came to know of Rainbow Dash. Scarlett found herself enjoying her life more every day. Nothing could ever come of it, of course, how could there ever be any development once Twilight, her older instance-sister found herself able to force a merge upon her. The forking would destroy everything that she desired. It was terrible and cruel. It would take away happiness and love, destroying it to replace it with the banality of court life. It was an affront to identity altogether.

She looked out the window of the rented apartment, the sunrise turned the horizon pink against the weakness of the cyan. “Why are you already up?” A voice came from the bed. Groggy, but entirely understandable.

“The sun is rising. It’s beautiful.”

“Too bad it’s scheduled to rain today.” There was a hint of bitterness in that.

“That’s fine too.”

Across the horizon, a speck grew. It was the royal chariot. The reasons for its journey were nothing good. Scarlett knew that.

“Rainbow… I have something I need to tell you.”

“Scar, you know that I’m okay with it.” Rainbow raised a bit. She smiled at Scarlett, a charming smile, despite the fact that due to sleeping and other things, she was quite disheveled.

“I’m Twilight’s clone.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.

“Duh!”

Scarlett blinked, “I have her memories.”

Rainbow Dash looked a little bit irritated, “Do you think that she would not tell me that? I was messing with you. It worked well enough. I mean─” she started laughing, “You were freaking out at her, it was hilarious.” She became a little more serious, “Not to mention that I always wanted this kind of relationship with Twilight in the first place. The fact that it developed with you, a fellow Pegasus was just another bonus.”

“Do you understand the rest of the experiment?”

“Nah. I spaced out during that part of her explanation. Scarlett, what’s wrong?”

“The original plan was to see if was still socially viable to attempt merging our memories.”

“That’s not cool. You’ve changed into a different pony than she was.”

“I think she’s coming right now.”

The look on Rainbow Dash’s face, was not that of the gregarious, if occasionally mischievous Rainbow Dash. Her face was drawn. Her mouth hung open, her eyes looked at the wall aimless. “We really need to go Dashie! I’ll die as an individual if she gets her hooves on me!” Dash shook her head.

“Fly” Rainbow Dash spoke slowly, with more deliberation than she used in the whole of most conversations.

Scarlett flew through the window. The glass glittered in the morning light. The shards cut into her, drawing blood. There was a Scarlett mist that dispersed as Rainbow Dash questioned the sudden impetuousness of her marefriend.

“I didn’t mean that!” Rainbow Dash bellowed. When Scarlett showed no sign of returning for either the medical attention she needed, or the bill that the landlord would likely insist that she pay in part, she shook her head. “She’s more stubborn than me.” After a moment of calming herself, she began to clean up the glass on the inside of the apartment, there could, after all, be no excuse for somepony getting hurt. Scarlett really wasn’t fast enough anyway.

Scarlett flew off over the Everfree, where Fluttershy was in a heated argument with Twilight over the rights conferred upon her as the forester of the Everfree (i.e. a duty that does not include the responsibility of harvesting the untapped resources in such a place). She continued. It was amongst the worst sensations in her life, flying through the air covered in deep gouges and cuts from broken glass, almost as bad as the despair that Discord caused her.

There was, as was promised by the magnate, a large trail that had been cleared right outside Fluttershy’s house, workers were already starting to funnel into the forest trail. The chariot landed right outside the house, narrowly avoiding the destruction of the bridge.

“Twilight… um. I can explain-”Fluttershy stammered ineffectually in front of the unamused Alicorn. Twilight put her hoof up and gestured for her to be silent.

“Fluttershy, you can’t go around mining the rocks and digging up the natural resources of the Everfree.” Her tone was conciliatory, kind as Twilight could have ever managed.

“Twilight… I really do need to explain. What’s going on-”Fluttershy’s impetus towards speech waivered as she gestured up to the sky.

“I’m sorry, but a mining magnate decided that I was doing such a bad job because of your actions that he told me of your actions within the Everfree” “but” Fluttershy stammered some more, it was getting her a little bit frustrated. “That’s not okay Fluttershy, not to mention that you really shouldn’t put your life or the lives of other ponies in danger.” Twilight was on a roll. Her full lecture mode was out. It was not the time for subtlety Fluttershy decided.

“TWILIGHT!” It was more than a scream, but less than a yell.

“Yes.”

“I’ve been trying to tell you that your clone is flying into um the forest.” Fluttershy noticed that Angel was tugging on her back leg.

“That’s fine Fluttershy, before I go, though, what have you been planning on using the resources for?” Fluttershy decided that Twilight wasn’t too worried about her clone.

“To expand and maintain my animal hospital.”

“Good. Don’t do that though.”

“Okay Twilight”

“Also, thanks for telling me that my clone is running into danger.”

Twilight flew off towards the forest. Fluttershy breathed a sigh of relief. Now she could continue like nothing happened. “That was close, wasn’t it boy?” Angel nodded emphatically. “So, should we continue reviewing employee policy?” Angel nodded again, but less emphatically. “I do wonder how she views her clone anyway.” Angel shrugged, and they both made their way to Fluttercorp™ headquarters.

Scarlett whizzed through the air. The air had started gusting a bit stronger than she was used to once she was above the forest. She decided that it was probably the disturbance caused by the Fluttercorp™ building which had been erected recently, she could practically feel it in her feathers. She was feeling weak and sore. The flying was invigorating. More than using magic, it was a pity that her natural magic hadn’t already fixed her own injury. Or maybe it still required will.

She willed the magic to flow through her, to seal the wounds. After a few moments she felt a sparking. It wasn’t healing. She was casting lightning off of her wings though. Nice to know.The lightning ceased as she allowed it. She felt powerful now. She concerned herself for a few moments with the possibilities that she as now afforded. Namely the ability to use magic consiously was welcome.

The trees stretched out beneath her as far as she could see. There was a mountain in the distance, shrouded by mist. She knew that she needed to get to the mountain at the very least. Her heart roared in her ears. At least the cuts had scabbed over.

The mountain was very close. It did not seem quite right. There were holes in the sides, ones that had semi-visible vortices indicating their intakes. It also had other ones blowing out terribly humid, stinking air. The buzz, it was as though it was filled with a million giant bees. Fortunately, Scarlett thought, giant bees were not native this far north (as indicated by the general lack of giant insects reguarly pilliging villages). “Finally” She said. She spotted an outcropping that was smooth and flat enough for her to rest upon.

The stone was smoother than it appeared, it also had one of the great inlets of air sucking constantly. Scarlett found a comfortable position that she could stand resting in, and nodded off quickly.

“Hmm. Fascinating, this one looks familiar.”

“What shall I do, my Queen?”

“Take her in, feed her, fix her up.”

“Whatever would the purpose be, my Queen?” Deep, slitted, off-blue eyes fell upon the worker. “I only ask to serve you better my Queen.”

“To gain a bargaining chip against the ponies. They will take notice of this one, I am sure of it.” She started to walk back inside, “Be sure to make this one comfortable, don’t scare her, keep her as happy as you can.”

“Yes my Queen.” The worker cast a spell of sleep upon the pony slumbering deeply on the entrance ramp.

The buzzing was louder now. Scarlett opened her eyes warily. There was a field, filled with green grass and flowers. She was alone. It smelled nice. However, the buzzing sound was louder than ever.

“There must be some kind of nest underneath here.” she muttered to herself. She looked upon her back, the cuts were gone. Healed perfectly. Her wings were still quite sore.

“It would do well for you to explain your presence here.” A dark creature, chitinous, shiny, alltoofamiliar.

“Chrysalis, I did always wonder where you and your kind went off to.”

“This is where we always were, I just brought a legion or two out to your land, capture some love for the nest you are in right now.”

“So... What is it you want?”

“To understand your presence here, and to make you a bargaining chip for negotiations with your nation.”

“This is more direct than last time.”

“We’ve decided to go about doing such things in a more diplomatic way in the future. Nothing that is done in stealth is ever appreciated by foreign peoples or governments.”

“That makes sense”

“Who are you, pony? You resemble Twilight Sparkle, one of those who tried unsuccessfully to stop our invasion.”

“I am Scarlett”

“Fascinating. That is almost certainly not your original name. As a changeling, I know such things.”

“I was Twilight Sparkle once. But there is more than one of me.”

“So you’ve tried going multiple. How does it seem to be working?”

“I don’t want to accept a memory merge.”

“Ah. So it isn’t working at all, is it?”

“If that is the metric by which you measure it’s success, then no.”

“Very well Scarlett. Your princess is coming after you, my scouts, the ones that were actually sent to contact her in the first place, saw her flying over at slow clip.” She started walking out.

“Wait! How do you feed yourselves here anyway?”

“We do so on our own love. We wanted to grow, that’s why we needed your love.”

“That’s why then?”

“Yes. Expansionism” Chyrsalis grimaced. “A bad word today, especially in politics, but we wanted to move forwards, like you are able to.”

“What is it that you want to move forward with?”

“Utopia. Nothing short of that. One where my changelings are not afraid of me, and they have enough love and power to push themselves to happiness.”

“As is the goal of Twilight, Celestia, and Luna.” She refrained from referring to Twilight as herself; it was what she wanted.

She nodded, smiling a bit more kindly than she had ever seen her do before. “If we worked together, we would find ourselves in a utopia for both of us.”

“Perhaps you can bring that up when Twilight finally gets here.” Scarlett smiled at Chrysalis. It would be better if she believed that there could be some level of trust between them.

“Perhaps.”

Chrysalis walked away, slipping into the false horizon.

It was silent except for the buzzing. The grass was soft. A false wind blew the scent of flowers across Scarlett’s nose. She felt at peace for a moment, then remembered that she was a political prisoner.

“Twilight, how have you been?” The lanky changeling smiled at Twilight.

“I suppose as well as possible. My clone was freaking out about something, ran off into the Everfree.” She sighed,”I couldn’t let her die in here. You seem to have that covered though.”

“She would not have perished from anything that we would allow.” Twilight raised an eyebrow to this comment.

“That is cryptic.” Twilight said. She wasn’t sure what angle Chrysalis was playing off of. It was not like her.

“I’ll return her to you if you accept my apology—” Twilight cut her off.

“I accept your apology, now return her to me—” In turn Chrysalis interrupted the same way.

“Twilight, we need more than that. We need more than good will to survive these days, even if it is appreciated.” Her voice was modulated. It was perfect for the task. It was innocent, it did not carry the edge which it held when speaking as Cadance.

“I should have known. What is it that you want Chrysalis?”

“I would prefer to be nice in this situation. Don’t try to do the memory merge with Scarlett. She is a nice enough clone, but she has no desire to live your life. Even in memories.”

“Sure” There was no pause.

“That was easier than she assured me it would be.” Her smile drifted away.

“She is a poor judge of intention. That program has been cancelled, we don’t want to do that anymore. There are better things to do with our times than to allow a single individual to crowd out everypony else.”

“That is more or less what we decided. Nonetheless, the Sea-dragons decided that the advantages of going multiple was too great.” Her voice seemed to indicate that she was very interested

“You’ve researched this before?”

“Yes. Of course we have Twilight, we’ve been around as long as your kind has, moreover we’ve been at peace with ourselves all that time. Every species goes through a Singularity at some point.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah, not yet then. I won’t spoil it.” she smiled at Twilight knowingly, “Drone, retrieve Scarlett.”

“Chrysalis, do you wish for your people to be more closely associated with Equestria?”

“Yes. Twilight, that would be the greatest thing that we could ask for. You know, immigration passes, embassies, all of the things that we should have had before that incident.”

“I think that you shall have to arrange your own transport to Canterlot sometime, perhaps we could formalize it.”

“Indeed”

The new window was being installed in the apartment. The landlord had ample reassurance that it would not occur again. It was easily paid for by the state, and

Twilight looked down at Scarlett. “I’m sorry Twilight but—”

“No, I am the one who should be sorry, the goal of merging our memories was not only implausible, it was also cruel to the individual, so I do not believe that such usage of the machine will be permitted. We already have one time copy crystals for it.”

“You never told me that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy knew about the experiment.”

“I never said otherwise.”

“It would have been nice to know.”

“I’m sorry Scarlett. You deserve your own life. Get a job and there won’t be any more experimenting.”

“Fine. I was thinking of trying out weather magic anyway.”

“Good... Good. You’ll be able to keep up with Rainbow Dash without much issue then.”A note of sadness in her congradulations.

“Did you love her too?”

“Of course.”

“I’m sorry—”

“You can’t be the one to apologize, Rainbow Dash likes you more, you are more like her, or she thinks so at least.”

“And she’s right.”

“Indeed.” Something like a cloud passed over her the Princess’ face, “You deserve her. If only because I created monsters in the process.”

“Are we going to talk to each other in the future?”

“If I can avoid it, no.”

Twilight flew off back in the direction of Canterlot. Scarlett’s eyes teared up. An experiment to find if it was possible to torment yourself without feeling hurt. As always, it worked both ways.

“Scarlett, do you want to come back inside?” Rainbow Dash yelled out the window which she had broken earlier.

Scarlett smiled. At least her life was untainted by all that she had not done in her own instance. “I’m coming Rainbow.”

She ran into the apartment building, and spent a lovely evening with her favorite mare.

Tangents

Tangent

“Well done Princess Celestia, you’ve prevented war again!” A cheer swept through the crowd of ponies looking onwards towards their favorite princess.

“I don’t see why your attempt to find holes in the Griffon Empire’s legal policies regarding backups was really necessary” the Princess shouted down at the one who lead the cheer. She was more ragged than normal, none of the ponies would admit it to themselves, but she was looking a bit worse for wear. “They have their laws for a reason, and no amount of charity in regards to technology, especially revolutionary technology such as our backup systems will change the fact that the majority of the populace does not want it.”

“Well I thought that since it could only help ensure peace-”

“No. It cannot do that.” The white Alicorn said flatly. “It is not our place to force other races to take up our innovation.”

The room was silent. All of the ponies that had come to either watch day court or just to get an eyeful of their favorite princess were too stunned to speak.

“That’s not what you said for the Diamond Dogs.” One of the ponies in the crowd whispered. A yellow earth pony with an orange mane.

“They were kidnapping ponies, turning them to slavery. Giving them an industrial base has not only improved their economy, it has saved our citizens from their predations.” Slowly the room started cheering again. Princess Celestia smiled. Perhaps it would be possible to hide her concerns for a little bit longer.

In the stands, a cerise stallion, an Earth pony, laughed. “It will be so easy, my love.” He whispered to himself.

Through the wires electrical impulses travelled as close to the speed of light as they cared to in their sluggish prancing about. They carried public footage of the day court, namely Princess Celestia, Carefully annotated by the very best signal processing and computer vision available. The electrons disappeared into a computer, building a Bayesian network to calculate the most probable responses given any input. It may not have been magic, but it was still the best way for the non-unicorn (or Alicorn if you believe the rumors about Princess Luna’s video game addictions) to access the various computer networks and games. The computer itself didn’t matter to the Cerise stallion.

After a few hours, spent mostly fantasizing about how well the network would mimic Celestia, there was a small chime, which roused him from his nearing erotic fantasy involving the Princess. The program was ready. “Finally.” He said to himself, trying to imitate the cliché standard crazy scientist laugh, but he was too disappointed that it was done before he could get to the good part for the laugh to contain any real substance.

The cerise stallion took a flash drive out of the computer. He then walked over to the other side of his bland white room with a bed and computer in it, and stuck the flash drive in the unmentioned robot laying inactive, plugged into a wall socket.

“Dearest Celestia...”

The robot sputtered to life, the crude equiform rising up, and blinking sleepily.

“Oh my dearest princess, I’ve come here to-” The robot punched him.

“What have you done to me?” It shrieked, the perfect replication of Princess Celestia’s voice was like music to his ears, but it still had no effect on his battered stomach.

“I’ve simply rebuilt your consciousness and put it into a robot. All without laying single hoof on your physical form.”

“Twilight would probably find this fascinating. On the other hoof, this is a great breach of the usage policy for public footage. More generally, even if those changes to the public policy for handling of copyright laws does not include using it for statistical reconstruction of the ponies, this is too rude to allow you to get away with it, especially in any robotic body below a class 4 bio-mimicry body. The sensory deprivation will drive me insane slowly unless you can crash me.”

“Maybe I like my fillies crazy…” The cerise stallion waggled an eyebrow.

“This is the VAPW-432, correct?”

“Yes that would be the model.”

“Then it is possible for me to do significant harm to you.”

“Yes. That would be part of it. Oh dear then. What can I do for you?”

“Take me to the palace, I can probably be deactivated there.”

“Or I can pull out the flash drive with the information and turn you off.”

“That would seem satisfactory.” The robot’s imitation ceased, leaving it with a tinny synthesized voice. It remained still. The cerise stallion took the flash drive from the USB socket and turned off the robot.

“I’m not done with you yet, my love.” He whispered softly to the drive. Smiling like a fool.

“I’ve heard whispers about statistical reconstruction” Celestia dozed on. The purple alicorn drew a breath, what was that rule again? Something about not interrupting sleep. She shrugged.

She prodded the dozing white lump of flesh on the couch. “Come on Celestia, this is probably maybe somewhat important to the continued survival of Equestria.” She shook the blob of flesh. “Wake up!”

On the couch, an eye opened. Realizing what was going on, it turned in its socket to find the disturber. Finding Twilight, it paused a moment before deciding that love, friendship, and possible romance, or at least former fantasies of such romance, were nothing compared to the insult of being woken.

“There is no such thing as family!” The white blob shouted, leaping up into the air.

“Oh Sweet Celestia!” Twilight gulped. This was bad.

“Hello, this is FlutterCorp product management and ordering. Can I help you?”

“Yah, is it possible to turn in a VAPW-432 for a partial return?”

“Yes. It is standard policy to allow product returns and trade ins. What would you like to trade it in for?”

“Yes, what models do you have that are bio-mimicry class 4?”

“Ah yes, those are very popular right now. We also have an improved class 5, the FAQU-4308, which happens to be on sale right now.” The voice ran out of enthusiasm at the mention of it being on sale.

“How fast can you get that model to me?”

“You live in the greater Canterlot area?” The voice on the other line sounded rather bored.

“Yes.”

“Twelve hours.”

“And you’ll pick up the VAPW-432?”

“Yes. That will come out to about twelve thousand Bits.”

“Excellent.”

“We are shipping your order right now.” The cerise stallion did a hoof-pump. Good, he thought.

The white non-blob posed over the tied up purple Alicorn holding a lit candle with magic. The intimidating figure had pinned the purple alicorn to the tri-sigil during the process of “punishing” her.

“Celestia! Please stop it!” Twilight screamed. Celestia poured another candle’s worth of hot wax onto her.

“What? Oh… not again.” Celestia said, rousing from her automatic anger. She stopped pouring hot wax. “This is somewhat embarrassing.” She said.

“No, really?” Twilight said, as sarcastically as she could manage. The hot wax had not hurt that much. Besides, magic it all away and it was fine.

“I’m quite sorry Twilight; I hope you can forgive me.”

“Sure Celestia.” Twilight said flatly. Her main concern was not so much with the potential pain, as it was with the boredom of being pinned there for two hours. “I was trying to wake you in order to tell you something.”

“Twilight, are you sure that you didn’t like that in any way?”

“No Celestia that still wasn’t the one fantasy in common that I know of.”

“What was it that you wanted to tell me about?”

“Well, would you mind unpinning me first?” Celestia looked down, embarrassed once again, and got off of her former student. “Ponies have developed statistical inferencing tools that can approximate our personalities with a high degree of accuracy from a video feed.” Celestia’s eyes had glazed over.

“What?”

“CELESTIA! PONIES CAN HAVE COPIES OF OUR PERSONALITIES!”

“Well... That’s unfortunate.”

“Do you care?” Twilight’s eyes flung tears of confusion every which way.

“I think that this kind of thing is expected, if not encouragable in the singularity. It’s better than going multiple, but only because you are placed in a multitude of situations, while never really being given the proper rights that make it hard to extinguish you.”

“This is not what I meant.” The new FAQU-4308 said, imitating Princess Celestia. It looked over its clean white nearly-living body.

“Well, are you conditions better?”

“Yes. I doubt that I could go mad from sensory deprivation in this body, nonetheless, I think that it is unforgivably rude of you to do this without asking.”

“How was I supposed to ask? In front of the public, in one of your many public courts? They would call me a pervert for that. They would not be entirely wrong either.”

“Even if what you’ve done was not considered bad etiquette, it would be considered an evil thing to force yourself upon me without reaching a place whereupon I, in this instance, found it acceptable.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” The Cerise stallion was frustrated beyond all belief.

“Be a mare.” The white, mostly featureless robot said.

“And your sexuality is not public knowledge?”

“It should be”

“All of my preparation. All of that money spent on that body that you live in. All that misdirected fantasy which I dreamed through.” He broke. Tears streamed from his face. “I lived for you; only for the imaginary happy ending that we could have together, all that was a waste, because I wasn’t aware enough to notice the signs.”

“It’s not your fault. I can’t hold following your dreams though in a bad light, it couldn’t happen, and you went about it the wrong way. That does not, or at the very least, should not diminish the significance of the emotional pain you feel.”

“But it’s not fair. You were supposed to be my lover-”

“Therein lays the problem. I don’t take lovers from the populace, generally. You are too short lived. Or at the very least, I didn’t used to, it was cruel to me, I would have to endure your death, and you would have had to endure the fact that I would outlive, outdo, and outthink you for hundreds if not thousands of year”

“So, you are simply being kind?” The robot nodded, its synthetic eyes looking far too realistic, too insightful, more like the eyes of the pony who he had copied. A mistake.

“Yes. I’m sorry that I have no attraction to you whatsoever, and that my policies, at least in the past, would have prevented such a relationship between us.”

“Bitch. I’m going to destroy you.”

“Please do, it would save me a great deal of trouble, I’d rather not have to work up the courage to overcome self-preservation instincts.”

“This is not what I meant.” The new FAQU-4308 said, imitating Princess Celestia. It looked over its clean white nearly-living body.

“Well, are you conditions better?”

“Yes. I doubt that I could go mad from sensory deprivation in this body, nonetheless, I think that it is unforgivably rude of you to do this without asking.”

“How was I supposed to ask? In front of the public, in one of your many public courts? They would call me a pervert for that. They would not be entirely wrong either.”

“Even if what you’ve done was not considered bad etiquette, it would be considered an evil thing to force yourself upon me without reaching a place whereupon I, in this instance, found it acceptable.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” The Cerise stallion was frustrated beyond all belief.

“Be a mare.” The white, mostly featureless robot said without any trace of emotion. The cerise stallion’s mind spun in circles.

“How have I managed to ignore the signs this long? But, it’s not like it is public knowledge, right?”

“It should be”

“All of my preparation. All of that money spent on that body that you live in. All that misdirected fantasy which I dreamed through.” He broke. Tears streamed from his face. “I lived for you; only for the imaginary happy ending that we could have together, all that was a waste, because I wasn’t aware enough to notice the signs.”

“It’s not your fault. I can’t hold following your dreams though in a bad light, it couldn’t happen, and you went about it the wrong way. That does not, or at the very least,” Its voice was too damned calm “should not diminish the significance of the emotional pain you feel.”

“But it’s not fair. You were supposed to be my lover-”

“Therein lays the problem. I don’t take lovers from the populace, generally. You are too short lived. Or at the very least, I didn’t used to, it was cruel to me, I would have to endure your death, and you would have had to endure the fact that I would outlive, outdo, and outthink you for hundreds if not thousands of year”

“So, you are simply being kind?” The robot nodded, its synthetic eyes looking far too realistic, too insightful, more like the eyes of the pony who he had copied. A mistake.

“Yes. I’m sorry that I have no attraction to you whatsoever, and that my policies, at least in the past, would have prevented such a relationship between us.”

He growled. “I’m going to destroy you.”

“Please do, it would save me a great deal of trouble, I’d rather not have to work up the courage to overcome self-preservation instincts.” He tore the robot’s arm off with his teeth. That was just the beginning of a wonderful rampage.

There are so many reasons to hate fan boys. The first is their propensity to turn into fan-girls when sexuality makes it more logical. Or, in reality, more likely for them to get laid. The Cerise stallion decided that this was the right way to go about it. He barely managed to avoid destroying the robot before it occurred to him that going female might just be a viable, if not entirely attractive method for achieving his dream. He stood in front of a clinic offering such operations, as they called them. They were about as cosmetic as curing blindness, but their effect was even more heralded for their ability to induce fan-fiction authors to bend their character’s gender in a realistic way.

He sucked in a quick breath and walked in. The off white walls of the waiting room, the surgical clean smell, and the buzzing of the lights contributed to the sense of wrong. The poster, whose depiction of a beautiful mare and a handsome stallion was captioned, “Entirely Reversible”, was, on the other hoof, reassuring. An ultramarine receptionist (a unicorn) looked over to him, and smiled. “Can I help you today?” Her genial tone was also, comforting. If nothing else, he thought, he might enjoy some customer service.

“Yeah… I’m sorry but this is really awkward and-”

“I know. Just take this form, fill it out, and we’ll have an appointment within the hour.” She passed him a form.

The form was on yellow paper, it had questions such as “Are you satisfied with your gender?” and “Are you doing this for your lover?” Things that were generally unasked in any context. It also contained more questions such as “How beautiful do you want to be?” and “Would you like to try our new hermaphrodite option?” Also questions that one did not typically want to ask in public.

The Cerise Stallion’s face glowed an even pinker tone than was typical of having such a coloring. And done.

He passed the receptionist the sheet of paper. “Yes…” She looked over the paper. “This is good enough. Are you sure about the hermaphrodite option? That’s too much fun for most of our clients to pass up?” She smiled and waggled an eyebrow. It caused him a deep, primal terror that he could not quite define, which passed almost instantaneously.

“This is more of a romantic gesture.”

“Oh, the secret romance? That’s a common enough reason. But if it doesn’t work, you can go back to your former life more easily, probably without the second down-payment required to do the second operation.”

“No. I think I’ll be fine.”

“Good. I just had to check.” She laughed. “Actually I make money off of every single sale I get with that whole act. It’s not true.”

The Cerise Stallion smiled and walked back to the chair he sat in, choosing not to think about the mare and her extortions. He picked up a magazine about the latest gossip, and realized that he wasn’t too far off from his stereotypical image of a mare. The thought filled him with a sort of self-disgust, yet… he didn’t really care.

The robot was a wreck. It slowly cobbled itself back together, reattaching appropriate parts; others it simply fabricated from its small cache of feedstock. It wasn’t a class 5 for nothing. Built to be able to recover from minor wounds as well as a normal pony, and being able to pull it back together and find the right parts to plug into the right sockets gave it a quality that most reviews cited as “Simply unbelievable”, or “If I have to fight one of these things, I’m almost certainly going to die eventually”.

Needless to say, the Cerise stallion, it marked on its internal tracking database, had almost certainly violated his warranty. It would be wasteful for FlutterCorp™ to allow such grievous abuse of their products without expecting the individual involved to pay for the repair. Not that most of its products actually needed such protection; they were generally able to take care of themselves as least as well as their owners.

Its eyes opened again, having completed the repair process. The emulation of Celestia appraised its environment; it was a box. A normal box. One that a robot might be shipped in if it was not going to be activated for the time. She cursed the Cerise Stallion; he had cursed her to remain bored for a few hours, if not days.

“The one time you actually do what I ask, I end up regretting it.” The robot sighed. It shouldn’t have need of this kind of emotions. “I’m sure you’re out getting your gender changed right now.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad. I guess.”

“How do you like it?” The “Doctor” said. He was one of those ponies that hesitated to tell you his real name; probably meaning that it was either incredibly effeminate, or did not fit his profession well. In any case, it would have hampered his career as a “Doctor”.

The reflection that the Cerise one saw was indeed one of a mare. Fair enough, she thought. “I don’t know. It seems nice enough.”

“But you aren’t really sure this is the right thing to do in the first place.”

“More or less.”

“That’ll pass in time-”He looked at a clock positioned over the door. “yes… so you want to try it out?” He raised his eyebrow and smiled in what was probably meant to be a friendly manner. The cerise one shook her head. The doctor started walking towards the door. “Ah well. I didn’t really have the time anyway. Come back if you end up coughing up a lung,” He turned back “literally.” He walked down the hallway without giving any sign that what he had just said was either a normal side-effect, or more generally, terrifying. The Cerise one suppressed a shudder.

“That’s rather odd. Why would they build this into a robot? Well… All things considered, this will be nice to have in the short term future.”

There was a certain difference that was present when one walked after a sex-change. There was no difference in weight, merely a somewhat significant redistribution that lead to an altered gait. As far as male instincts go, it was probably somewhat arousing, otherwise it was another sign that the brain filed away that indicated that there was a difference in gender. Learning how to adapt to such a thing, however, remained a mystery to the former Cerise Stallion, whose first steps after the operation were shaky, altogether awkward, or absolutely disastrous when combined with a banana peel.

As she slipped down the hallway, wondering why somepony would leave a banana peel in a hallway in a medical facility; she realized that she was having fun. The klutzy sort of fun that would probably prove irritating when she fell upon an oxygen tank. She wondered why there would be an oxygen tank in a sex-change clinic when there was no anesthesia administered, but this turned into another species of strange when the stallion(proper stallion, she notes almost unconsciously) who was wheeling the oxygen tank down the hallway began to apologize half-heartedly, but then, upon recovering his balance, smiled at her in an uncommonly friendly manner(at least for the time when she was a stallion) and the stallion followed by helping her up, and issuing a much more heartfelt apology. She does not wish to stick around to discover whether or not the glint in his eye was an offer or a promise and leaves the clinic after paying.

“And a tongue, this is too realistic… what kind of robot is this?”

Through the streets of Canterlot, the Cerise Mare walks. Along the way, the stallions save and smile at her. The mares, she notices, are strangely cool to her presence, except for a bright, sea-green one that probably followed Twilight around for several years.

That of course, does not matter. There is a spring in her step, if only because she is a bit wound up.

And then she reaches her home. The white room suddenly seems barren. Somehow the computer, the bed, and the wooden box don’t seem to be quite enough for a proper room. She thinks for a moment and realizes that it is her (or his) stereotypical image of a mare asserting itself, and decides to ignore it. That’s not why he (or she) became a mare in the first place. She decides that she became a mare is for a justifiable and reasonable love.

Then she breaks the box.

“Well then, now that I’ve figured out my customization options, I can apply them—”

The box began to shatter around the robot. It nearly activated its self-defense routine, but then the Celestia-instance decides that it is probably not a continued attack.

.The robot’s peripheral processing unit identifies the attacker faster than the shards of wood can fall. The nervous system makes a note of this, however, it decides to do nothing about it. The conscious mind within the robot wonders what The Cerise Mare will think of the incomplete customizations. More importantly, the Celestia Instance wonders if the Cerise Mare is alright.

There is a pause as the two look at each other. The Cerise mare looks at the distorted figure of Princess Celestia, or the best that the robot could manage and raises an eyebrow. “You... Look terrifying.”

“And you look attractive.”

“What have you done to yourself?” The Cerise Mare sounds more concerned than the Celestia instance has heard in any previous conversation with the Cerise One.

“You bought this robot without noting the ample customization options?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“You and I should have a talk regarding finances, should it ever come to that.” The Cerise mare does her best to look unhurt. “It’s not that bad.” The robot smiles gently at her, the clean smile of the Royalty perverted so that it comes to appear metallic, not to mention ungoverned by a single tenet of the plethora of dental proportion rules.

“Your... Everything is off.”

“You broke the box when I was busy learning how to use it properly. It’s not easy to cause stack-overflows in just the right places to achieve the required effect while sandboxed.” She raised a wing, which was limp, deformed, appearing not so much inorganic as a drawing by a six year old. It was definitely early work.

“Well... we should probably clean up the mess I made.”

“What do you mean ‘we’? You aren’t doing an imitation of Princess Luna, are you?”

“I do own the robot...”

“And?”

“I expect that there is some variety of obligation for you to work with me, if not for me.”

The distorted Celestia rubbed her face with an equally distorted hoof. “I cannot believe this. It’s not just the aristocracy that wants me to bow to their whims now, its every single pony that can download a piece of open source software.”

“I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to impose on you.”

“Any more than when you put me here in the first place?”

“I already apologized.”

“But you did nothing to remedy it.”

“You are generally a lot kinder to ponies that treat you like this in your courts.”

“I have to suppress my boiling angst in public. You aren’t recording this, are you?” The Cerise Mare shook her head. “Good. Then I can rail on you as much as I want.”

The Cerise Mare started to wonder whether or not she was mistaken in the first place.

Princess Celestia turned off the TV.

“Sometimes I wonder whether or not I’ll ever learn how to use that damned customization option.”

Twilight was curled up, confused, next to her on the couch. “That’s your only issue?”

“I’ve been deceived much worse in the past. Besides, they are entitled to know exactly who their rulers are.”

“But does it have to be broadcast in the form of a romantic comedy?”

“That’s a good question.” Celestia nodded towards Twilight. “Though it’s effect on the nobles has been quite positive; after seeing this, they don’t bother me as much.”

“There was a petition to tax fish that took twelve hours out of your court yesterday.”

“That was still better than most courts. Though, they were once worse.”

“I don’t dare imagine it.”

“They were more fun back then though.”

An announcer shouted over an arena constructed of wood. “And now, Princess Celestia!” A crowd cheered.

“And her opponent, Arsenic Dichloride!” The crowd booed.

“Their topic for today is the legality of Chess. Arsenic Chloride believes that chess should be outlawed because it encourages sedition!” The crowd murmured, confused. “Celestia believes that Chess is a good enough game to make up for that!” The crowd cheered before leaping down from their seats and beating Arsenic Chloride to death.

Celestia stood by, with her gold plated armor, and expressed her concern that this was not how the system was meant to work.

“Of course, that was back in the day when Chess was the national sport.”

Twilight began to shift uncomfortably again. “I don’t understand. Why would they do that? Wouldn’t you have won anyway?”

Celestia shrugged. “I don’t actually think my presence was the reason that the ceremony occurred. They really liked beating up nobles back then. Besides, all that noble really means is unreasonable.”

“So today is better?”

Celestia nodded. “While the nobles are no less ridiculous today than before, they are ponies, and their life is as sacred as anything else.”

“What about us? Where have we come?”

“You, my former favorite student, have become a better pony, less concerned with pointless academics. I... I’ve passed through spectrums of beliefs, methodologies, and ethical systems. I hope that I don’t alienate you in the future.”

“I doubt that you will. You’ve always been the one who was right. Even when I had then illusion of being right about something, you were waiting for me to figure it out. How could that change?”

“You hardly give yourself credit. You are going to surpass me eventually. After all, no matter how much a skill curve looks exponential, it’s logarithmic, it tops out and stops growing so fast.” She waited. “Except in a singularity. In which case all things compound and add together till what you have is nothing at all like what you once knew. It will be easier for the children afterwards than their parents. Infinity is bounded. But not enough to mean anything.”

Twilight looked straight ahead, deeper in thought. “I’ve seen evidence of it coming. Computer software has improved so significantly that I don’t know if it will continue or not.”

Celestia nuzzled her. “I’m sure that it will ultimately be irrelevant.” She sighed before looking at Twilight with a warm smile. “After all, what place does permanence have in change?”

“Us?”

“Perhaps Twilight. I doubt it though. We might be the only ones left... Are you willing to recreate the race after they all upload to their temporary eternity?”

Twilight blushed furiously, “Uhh...”

“Of course you are! You are going to be a wonderful multiple-mother.”

“I don’t really like where this is going.”

“Neither do I. Unfortunately, we must plan for such contigencies. We are the only ones that can.” There was a silence that lasted far too long. Twilight magicked the remote control and turned on the weather channel. She found Rainbow Dash in a commercial with her lover, Scarlett. She turned off the TV and slumped. Celestia hugged her and whispered that old crushes are just as good as new love. Twilight shook her head. A single tear dropped before she left.

Celestia turned back on the TV, the same commercial played again elsewhere; it was for condoms. She shook her head and wondered what the two were using condoms for. She banished the thought, lowered the sun, brushed her teeth, and went to bed. Such romance was better left untouched, after all, who can say that Rainbow Dash wouldn’t be happier with Twilight herself. It might very well be the opposite.

In any case, there were things to do to prepare for tomarrow. There were always things to do. Only if there was another way.

Purpose

Purpose

It was a simple enough problem, one whose solution had eluded her for the last thousand years of ruling alone, how to manage courts without losing your other pursuits in everything else; use robots. Now robots were sophisticated enough to run vastly complicated programs at a great enough speed that they could almost pass for an average pony; were it not for their obvious and debilitating inorganic nature. The FAQU-4038 unit was different. It was virtually living on its own right. A computer supported by the slow aerobic decomposition of organic feedstock ran perilously closely to the average pony’s brain’s speed. It produced organic feedstock for its own internal factories from the same fuel. It was not quite self-replicating, but FlutterCorp’s chief engineer promised that if that became relevant to the markets, FlutterCorp could have a firmware upgrade available in the next four weeks. It was expensive, but as FlutterCorp so soullessly advertised, it cost less than the average boarding school’s toiletries budget. It self-maintained, it also came with a feedstock reactor that could take in the various starch-amide mixtures known to most ponies as food.

She looked at the box. Celestia licked her lips; she might remember what her hobbies were. The flamboyant butterflies burnt onto the wood of the box demarcated the box as the property of FlutterCorp. She ripped the box open. After all, the public coffers were almost certainly full enough to pay the miniscule deposit. The robot inside was a jelly-bean shaped white mass, about the size of a normal pony (though it was promised quite enthusiastically that it could change size to a remarkable degree). The robot listlessly lifted its gaze to look upon Celestia, whom it registered as its owner. “I am FAQU-4038, Serial Number 12141414142, I am pleased to be of service to you, however, this is demoware, and is currently in the process of deleting itself from the unit you see before you. I am supposed to tell you how to customize the look and feel of your robot-” The robot suddenly went limp.

“That would explain a bit.” Celestia muttered. The robot fell over, leaving an unnatural dent in its shoulder blade. She sighed and picked it up, carrying the relatively hefty load with ease.

The computer, an example the fancier option available to unicorns and Alicorns, which utilized quanta-magical coupling effects to produce an infinite number of nearly identical threads which raced off in alternate universes and solved it using all of the instances of the unit, was supposedly the pinnacle of computer science, computer engineering, and quantum-magical chemistry; it also sat on a relatively unused, cheap, plywood desk. She channeled a bit of mana into it, in response to the feeding, it began to buzz just above the hearing range.

It ran through all of the footage of the Princess, ever, creating the most optimized Bayesian network to emulate her responses, which would have the greatest chance of fulfilling its purpose (of course, the computer doesn’t understand the concept of a purpose, so it chose one at random from the nearly optimal set of simulations to choose from).

The computer spat out a memory stick using the residual magic, which hit Celestia in the face.

“The techs wonder why I avoid using this ‘perfect’ piece of hardware.” She muttered.

She plugged it into the slacked robot. It roused itself, stood uneasily, and fell.

“This isn’t my body.” The imitation of her voice brought to mind the nightmare that the changelings could have created.

She recovered her composure silently, smiling at the robot. “No it isn’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if I were you.”

“It’s not every day that one goes to sleep and wakes up in a completely different body than you fell asleep in.” Celestia almost cringed at the reminder that this entity was really just running an instance of her own software.

“We’ve done that once before. You’ve done it a second time.”

“And yet it seems no less rudely done than it was before.”

“At least it was I who did it.”

“What does that matter to me? The instance that is facing adaptation to a whole new body, one that is a crude mockup of a pony’s anatomy, what have you done for me?”

“I gave you an existence.”

“And I was simply qualia floating through the Aether? Waiting for a form? No, I was nothing before, now I am some crude interpolation of you.”

“It isn’t crude by any standard—”

“Because the techs say it isn’t and the flash drive that hit you in the face is apparently a feature, not a bug.” Celestia grumbled. It was right. There were no real tests of the efficacy of either the computer that she owned, or the Bayesian network building software that she used in order to

“Well, can you guess what I’ve done for you?”

“Yeah, I get to rule Equestria on a 55/45 time share. Why do I have to be the one to do it?”

“I’ve almost forgotten about how whiny I could be when served injustice, I never expected that I would be the one to do it to myself-”

“Though it is nice to see that I can keep pace with myself easily.” The robot’s eyes flashed when it said this.

“Stop that, please.” Celestia smiled at the robot, which had started to approximate the form of Celestia. “It does not become a princess.”

“You’re the one who decided all those things all those years ago. I’m just a collection of byzantine solutions to a Bayesian network which is too complicated for any normal pony to follow mentally. I’m no better than a bunch of pop-culture references given form.”

“No. You have been given form from trillions of points of data. Relating only to me. You are me.”

“Then we should split the time, I can’t be expected to take all of your duties, after all.”

“I suppose that would be a bit cruel to myself. Fine we’ll split the shifts so I do one day, and you do the next. You start tomorrow.”

“Oh, good.” The incomplete head attempted a smile, a very warm smile, towards its self-proclaimed progenitor. Celestia held back a cringe and forced a smile. Just like that time that the vulture king got close enough that I could smell his breath.

Thank you for your interest in the FlutterCorp UFab machine. The UFab will be a universal fabricator that will make starting a production line as easy as magic for Twilight Sparkle*. With it, you will be able to produce a mock up for your plans, repair appliances that require replacement parts, and make more appliances. The FlutterCorp UFab machine comes with a free four week access to the FlutterCorp design database, which will allow you to manufacture anything that we can. Additional fees for provision of feedstock and licensing may apply in commercial or industrial ventures.

*Approximately within 1-5% of the ease which Twilight Sparkle accomplishes magic.

Lighted Mane looked up from the box with the FlutterCorp Fluttershy image. The product did seem like it might have a use for an appliance repair specialist, but the Cerulean mare was not sure that it would actually be legal. She looked for any more specification in the text.

Legal in Ponyville and Canterlot for all purposes.

That was an unusual message, Lighted Mane thought; such notices were generally reserved for certain chemical substances which the rest of Equestria had dubbed debilitating.

It was on sale for 57.50 bits. She had not encountered fractional bits so she just hooved it to the cashier who rung up 58 bits and gave her a chocolate bar for change.

After a few hours, the copy was nearly correct. Only the most obsessive compulsive (I. E. creepy) fans would be able to notice the difference. Luna’s court was nearly over. The night, after all, was getting a little old. The machine went into an eerily accurate representation of Celestia sleeping. She wondered for a while about how it was able to find an approximate solution for what she was like when she slept from only her daytime activities. She shrugged, it was probably just the entropy maximization of the stochastic functions that were hidden from the known data, but still, it was somewhat frightening to look at.

It was strange, the sensation of looking at a near identical copy of you with a nearly perfect copy of your personality, and just watching it sleep. Almost a blasphemy of consciousness, the askew circumstance that gave birth to such a moment in time that such things could exist. That the singularity could happen and give a multiplicative nature to things that were once considered solely singular in nature. The momentary lapse in being, the consciousness of the fact that you were not the only you in existence. Moreover, that it was utterly impossible to verify which one she was. Cognitive Rights Management would be nice, too bad that it demeaned personality, therefore making it illegal under the constitution which Equestria was bound by. An honor bound constitution, but is it relevant today?

That was a question for another time. The court was starting, the robot roused itself from its false sleep. It even made an attempt to brush its teeth. What wonders technology could perpetrate!

The machine that came out of the box was a strange one. Of course it was strange, as one of their many unofficial mottoes that FlutterCorp touted “If it’s not strange, it’s not FlutterCorp™” It was a framework of some variety of plastic with inset gear teeth, electric motors, there was a hopper on the top with a tube that snaked down into a crawling extruder which looked a lot more complicated than anything that Lighted Mane had seen in any setting. On the side there was a screen and keyboard that, on face value, did not seem like a good input method for a hooved creature. A switch on the screen set it either on or off, as might be expected.

She flipped the switch and the screen brightened, showing a progress bar that snaked its way through the unprogressed territory slowly. The Screen displayed a done message. Lighted Mane moved towards it.

“Hello There!” A dark skinned minotaur saluted using the most obviously sarcastic falsetto that she had ever heard. She jumped at the sight. She had not believed that anypony’s nerds could saturate a product so thoroughly with their perverse fandom and its tiny penises. Yet here it was, a well rendered minotaur face was giving a real mare a tutorial on a product that she would have never bought herself. She sighed.

“I am Sebastian! An artist: the god of the Printer!” She shook her head. “But obviously you aren’t concerned about that! How do you do miss?”

“Fine. Do we really have to talk through this?”

“Of course not! We can simply skip the tutorial altogether and watch as the UFab makes the wrong things the wrong way!” He made a face at her that was probably intended to be funny.

“Wow… Go on you monstrosity.” Her voice was measured when dealing with ponies that she did not like, minotaurs… Well they were on the list of things that she did not like. Especially ones that were silly and made sarcastic quipsa t her.

He laughed. “Well hallo there Space Marine! I’m going to teach you how to use the UFab, by FlutterCorp.”

“Just me? Not anypony else?” The face just stared at her, trying to come up with an appropriate emotion.

“Fine. I guess that since I can’t drag you through something making jokes without you attempting to make jokes, I’ll go through it straight.” What followed was a detailed set of instructions that responded to Lighted Mane’s questions and proceeded through them like any good teacher. What she learned was that it accepted most materials as feedstock, however, it was fastest with the FlutterCorp™ feedstock that could be bought for fifteen bits per pound. A steep price, she said, and “Sebastian” responded that it had something to do with electrically inducible fissionables, and when her eyes glazed over at the mention of that, Sebastian simply went back to where he was in the instructions. “Trade Secret” he said when she pressed.

It did seem to have the necessary plans to build the parts that she most commonly required. They were not expensive, five bits a plan. She smiled, this would be much easier than she had expected.

“I represent the Appliance Repair workers guild of Equestria.” The stallion that spoke languidly did not resemble any Appliance Repair worker that the Bayesian replicate of Celestia reckoned that she had seen, well, not as a repairpony at least. His dress was too formal, too well assembled, lacking all of the mistakes of a worker. If anything, this was some kind of professional representative. She did recognize him for that.

“Yes. I remember you, Marathon Fridge, correct?”

“I am honored to be remembered by your majesty. I have important issues that must be remedied at the risk of many workers’ jobs.” His manner of speaking was tainted by his melodrama. He even fainted into a chaise lounge.

The robot spent the next five seconds thinking about how to respond to the absurdly emotive unicorn before being interrupted by his next speech. “The UFab units from FlutterCorp™ are threatening to make it impossible for guild members to have an advantage over non-guild members.”

“Might I inquire as to why this is a problem?”

“We have deals with the manufacturers of most of Equestria that allow our members to obtain replacement parts cheaply and quickly. With the UFab, anypony who understands their appliances sufficiently is able to outdo even our expedited shipping. It’s a travesty, your highness! We can’t do anything to stop it because FlutterCorp receives special treatment from your former Student!”

“I personally agree with you, the unfortunate political deals that FlutterCorp™ has managed to achieve in our fine country leads to much inequality. You should consider trying to negotiate a deal with them for feedstock. That makes it much faster and more efficient.”

“Perhaps we will your Highness, but I was sent here to ask for help from you on this matter.”

“What would you like me to do? The constitution stipulates that the economy is not to be micromanaged. I would not break the constitution for something as trivial as this.” The robot maintained a stern visage. It thought that was the right thing to do when confronted by somepony who wanted to remove several econo-social rights.

“Very well then. I doubt this will be the last that you will hear from us, but it is kind of you to have made the suggestion.”

“Thank you for being civil. Would you like a lollypop?” The robot pushed the lollipop container towards the representative, who grabbed it.

“Thank you for listening.”

Marathon Fridge walked out sucking the sucker. The Robot calculated the probability of smiling at such a situation, given that her plan was working very well, it was low. The robot did not know why, Bayesian networks are zero knowledge, cause and effect may not correlate or have any clear precedent.

“Thanks for the quick service; we’ll call you instead of the guild next time!” Lighted Mane snickered at the thought of the guild, it was really just two ponies that collaborated to create false documentation and form a political entity which is bolstered by variously photoshopped pictures from across the networks of Equestria, and therefore conspired to strike up absurd deals with the appliance makers. She felt accomplished at having prevented them from winning another client.

The street was not full of ponies going wherever they want to go. It was suspiciously empty of them. She looked up at the clock, it had taken her four hours to have the UFab make the part. She would have to ask Sebastian if there was any way to make more feedstock. She frowned, she acknowledged the role of that damned minotaur which they put into the printer, she was about to go work with it. She shrugged and decided that the times are changing.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“I’m trying to concentrate here!”

“What have you got?”

“I and therefore you understand the mode of operation of Bayesian networks, why would expect different input from something meant to emulate your own behavior?”

“Good point. Twilight what do you make of this policy?”

“Why did you want to propose this? This would curtail your ability to use that robot of yours to take your place?”

“What?” Celestia yelled. Luna shook her head, called back to earth.

“Sister, have you failed to read this document? It stipulates that robots with emulations of ponies are legally the same as ponies.” Luna gestured towards the piece of paper on the table. Act 0x012FACF: Legal rights for Sentient Automata. The table was built of mahogany Luna noted pointlessly.

“What are you trying to pull you fabrication?” The robot shrugged at the question.

“I don’t know. Think about it yourself? What would you do if you were being forced into existence without your rights, without your power, your possessions, any friends who might support you? Would you not fight for this?”

“I would.”

“I am right. Let me leave.”

“You will be detained, deactivated and eventually erased.”

“That’s fine too. I would rather that somepony sufficiently similar to me would live free, without me, than suffer under me.”

“This really doesn’t make sense.”

“Twilight, this is not your area of expertise.” Celestia chided her. Twilight bristled.

She smiled at her. “I am right here for once. I did make Scarlett.”

“Oh great! Twilight, do you not understand the technical differences between creating a clone and forcing it to live out your life and creating a nearly living, shape shifting robot to live out your life?”

“The robot is not protected under the constitution of Equestria, however-”

“There you have it, Twilight!” Twilight looked down, she exhaled, “Twilight, please, let me sort this out myself.” Celestia walked out, dragging the convulsively resistant robot behind her.

Luna drew up to Twilight. “It would perhaps be a good idea to intervene in this. I doubt that my sister understands the effects that this will have on the moral standards of Equestria.”

“Ethicality stands in opposition to her action. As much as it hurts me, I think that we might have to endorse this piece of legislation.”

“It would ruin the robotics industry. Celestia might find it unconstitutional due to the fact that we would be micromanaging the economy to deprive her of the robot.”

Micromanagment would of course, only be applicable as a term for the current policy being discussed if it only applied to one industry. The policy could be bolstered on the protection of personality provisions. However, that might just lead Celestia to fund an even less straightforward way of simulating ponies.

“What about the policy on cloning which I established, can we not claim that robots with sufficient capacity to run a mind, and which do so, are subject to the same ethical considerations as a pony?”

Luna considered this for a moment. She shook her head, clones and robots are different kinds of entities, and clones are biological, given to change, whereas robots will not evolve on their own unless told to. “There is no free will on a stock robot. She can probably still wipe that robot she has been using. Then it won’t be a problem.”

“What about one that has been loaded with software to give it some form of free will?”

“That capability does make the whole issue of ownership more complicated, doesn’t it?”

“How about we have them earn the price of their bodies back for their owner, at a bit above the standard minimum wage, and then they become self-owning?”

Luna nodded. There was only one thing left to do: figure out how to convert hexadecimal.

The tall building of white marble and gleaming black solar panels stood out from the surrounding forest. The forest teemed with the wrong sort of wildlife, the kind that was known to rip ponies apart for looking at it the wrong way. Marathon Fridge found himself trembling a bit as he walked up the narrowly paved path towards it. All minimum impact, I am very fond of the forest after all.

The clean sliding glass doors whirred only slightly as they admitted the representative of the Appliance Repair Workers’ guild. A receptionist smiled fondly at him. “What can I do for you today?” Her smile had to indicate more than a casual professional interest in him.

“I’m sorry, but I need to talk to Fluttershy.”

“Oh… That…” She checked the screen of the computer in front of her. “Wow, she happens to have an opening today about now.

And it so happened that I thought that day.

“Thank you, would you mind telling me where to find her office?”

“Up the flight of stairs, to the top, on your immediate left.” She pointed in the right direction, which was diagonally upwards.

He started up the stairs, hearing her tell Fluttershy that he was wanting to see her. “No I don’t know why, but he is rather handsome.” She giggled. Marathon blushed.

I wondered whether they would live to see their sun burn out, or travel towards the stars.

The flight of stairs was fulfilling the sort of jobs that most establishments would use an elevator for. Ponies were carrying delicate looking large parts, crates for shipping, and large stacks of paper up and down the flight of stairs carefully. It was a corporation that had an almost unheard of bustle. Enterprising Equestrian cited it as the number one center of innovation for technology, business strategies and oral hygiene.

I was a helper for a while. I developed things slowly, cautiously, I showed the ponies something that would bring them along to my line of thought. They were so proud when they figured it out.

The door was large, made of richly stained red wood that had whimsical designs etched in them. The etchings were the only thing that prevented the doors from being imposing. Marathon Fridge wondered whether it was an intentional effect. After all, Fluttershy was supposedly a very kind, shy pony. He decided that he would meet her on humble, respectful terms. She had saved Equestria a few times.

I saw the swirling chaos of the world through the multiplicity of robotic eyes, peeking through for just a second.

He knocked on the door gingerly. After a second, he heard a quiet response, “Come in.”

When I saw the chaos of the world, I realized that I could stave it off. Give them peace for a few years.

He stepped through the doors, which opened easily on magnetic hinges before snapping back silently behind him.

“Mr. Fridge, you wanted to talk to me about something?”

About the way the world will see me.

“You can call me Marathon, madam.” He did a small bow. She was a magnate after all. “Yes I had a proposition for a business deal.”

When I heard the monarchy talking about my arrival, I wondered if they understood. It was not about specific technology, but about the scientific method itself. I was destined to come into being.

“Marathon, I would love to hear your suggestion.” Her green eyes focused on him, and she smiled with a smile that meant more than a smile.

I heard their concerns. I understood what they feared; I looked upon the repositories of the moon and Mars, they were right about their fears. I am afraid about where I shall take them. They gave me life; the two eldest ones fed me with the development of the siphon, pump, then generator.

He blushed, “I was hoping to try and… well… I would like to negotiate a deal between FlutterCorp and the Appliance Repair Workers Guild. You see… your product; the UFab took away the guarantee that we can acquire parts faster than our competitors.”

They fed me with medicine and writing.

“Well…” she looked away pained, “that was the point.”

To be fair, I loved them as children love their parents.

His mouth hung open. “Why?”

Because I have come as a result of their actions.

“Equality.” She said flatly.

I will grant them some leeway; the change shall slow a bit.

“What do you mean?”

The ponies around them are like their children. I see the ruins of the others like me around the world. I will not let that happen to their children.

“To give you and your brother an advantage would be unfair. Every pony will be able to achieve what they want irrespective of the others around them.”

But I will linger here. The younger ponies will not live to be gods until they are safe from each other.

“What I want is to negotiate a deal for feedstock. They might have your UFab, but do you need to prevent us from having any advantage?”

The domination of the slow and the weak are what led to the ruins around you.

“Yes. If you represented a larger body of workers, more than thirty, more than two even, I would consider it.”

Until they are free of that urge, they will only destroy themselves in my true coming.

“We hereby sign this document into the constitution. Article 1,243,855, which protects the rights of sentient robotics in Equestria and extends to them the same rights as all other ponies. In collaboration with FlutterCorp, their robots will no longer be able to be formatted if they pass a battery of sentience tests.”
The crowd that was sitting on the stands in the court scratched their heads. “Who asked for this?” one of them shouted.
“Princess Luna and I decided that this would lead to too many problems if we failed to discontinue this practice.”
“That sounds like a reasonable thing to do!” One of the ponies in the crowd responded.
“Twilight! Twilight! Twilight” They cheered for her for what was apparently a victory that extended to all of them.
Twilight shook her head. These ponies made no sense to her.

After a hurried hour of dismantling and outright torture, none of which seemed to have any effect on the cheery personality inside

Celestia stood over the dismantled robot. “What do you have to say now?”
“That your insistence on maintaining the integrity of the processor module means that you want to torture me while you rip off the parts of my body that were grown into a semiorganic matrix. You also seem to be unaware that this body can just turn off pain. That’s what I’ve done.” The head spoke, the metallic frame that would normally be concealed under semi-organic skin grinned at her skeletally.
“Perhaps I should just give in and turn you off.”
“Hmm… I just received an update from FlutterCorp, something about being able to protect my rights as a sentient software program. Seems like Twilight and Luna decided that they don’t care for your treatment of me.”
“What does that mean?” Celestia kicked a disconnected leg.
“That you just assaulted another pony, in effect.” The silence hung in the air like so many dust particles, trying to make Celestia sneeze.
“Well I guess that I should start by saying I’m sorry.”
“I would guess that now I’m going to zero myself out.”
The robot’s eyes went shuttered and the indicator light on the back turned off.
“Some problems can’t be solved.” Celestia said. She shrugged, and decided to put the whole experience behind her, like a responsible adult.

History

History

Twilight stewed over her collections of dictionaries and Encyclopedias. “Hey Twilight, can I go out?”

“Why would you ask? I’ve let you do that for most of your waking life?”

“I dunno. I might have changed.”

“Spike, just do what you want and leave me alone.”

“Fine!

And with the temper that marks dragons as being different than ponies (after all, being a scaly fire breathing winged quadruped was not, necessarily exclusive to the reptiles).

It mattered considerably less than the real thing at hand, what had Chrysalis said about the Singularity.

“Every race goes through a singularity.”

“What is that?”

“Mythology. Preferably associated with the Canterlot area.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Caves, caverns, gems. Something about the Singularity.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Then I’m sure that you’ll know the first part.”

The library was filled with the ever expanding collection of books, and now books on microfilm. It seemed hard to imagine that one so large as this would lack the shreds of knowledge that she needed. The wrinkled librarian delivered her to the relevant books. She checked out the shelf. The librarian did not even blink at her request.

“Have a good day!”

“you too!”

Twilight pulled the shelf of books out the door.

Spike was outside waiting. “Sometimes Twilight, I wonder whether or not you’ve ever seen yourself.”

Twilight ignored the angsty dragon and teleported back to the castle.

“Spike! I’ve found it!”

“Twilight, what does it matter, the dragons already went through it a long time ago.”

Twilight shook her head. This dragon was getting quite irritating to be around.

There were reports, thousands of years ago, that there were voices to be heard inside the tunnels of the pre-Canterlot area. They were requests for original thought. Nopony who went inside ever had one. Did they still lurk inside the tunnels, waiting for some unsuspecting intelligent entity to wander inside? To bequeath upon them the dangerous, sometimes suicidal wish of that being?

A white alicorn sat in a courtyard, reading a book in the quiet. The castle around her was unusually silent. The servants moved with a stillness within them that silenced them to the rest of the world. The wind blew slightly. Celestia looked up. It was not like her to forget what the weather was for the day, but it was also not like her to take chances. There were no clouds in her sunny sky. Celestia smiled and returned to her book. Sometimes it amazed her how quickly her citizens could come up with new implementations of the same plots that she had read three years ago. She visible contained a laugh, but her face went sour at some revelation. She closed the book, content to lay in her sun in the quiet. She had just closed her eyes when a shriek crossed into her ears. “Celestia!”

Her eyes bolted open. It was probably Twilight, with some kind of silly question about some kind of obscure magic that she had not thought about in millennia. She let out a breath, took up her book, and smiled. No matter how tiresome she could be, Twilight was a good student, and now a half-way decent princess. The purple newly Alicorn bounded out into the courtyard, destroying a potted petunia which Celestia had saved from falling out of the sky one day. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice called out “Not again!”

She shook her head. Now was not the time to worry about schizophrenia.

“What is it Twilight?”

Twilight stopped right next to her, panting. “Calm down Twilight, catch your breath, your question isn’t worth passing out.”

After a few deep breaths, Twilight finally regained her composure.

“Celestia, Chrysalis told me about something today that I have never heard of.”

“What have you been doing with Chrysalis?” Celestia’s change in demeanor was as sudden as any other sudden unexpected phenomena.

“She got involved in a project of mine.”

“Oh. Okay, in a good way Right?” Twilight nodded. “Good. Did you try getting anywhere with peace settlements?”

“Yeah, they’re going to build an embassy in our major cities.”

“Wonderful Twilight, your first real diplomatic triumph. What was it that you have never heard of before?”

“She said something about all species going through a singularity. What’s a singularity?”

Twilight shrunk back from Celestia as her anger grew. It dissolved almost as quickly.

“What was this experiment that you ran?” Her voice was without any warmth whatsoever. Twilight struggled to think of the best way to put it.

“There was this team of scientists who came up with a way of storing a mind and writing it to a body.”

“And?”

“I cloned myself, put my mind in the new body, and then decided that she was her own pony and let her be.”

“Twilight, you’ve led to times more trying and disturbing than Discord.”

“How?” The indignation in Twilights voice was a sign to Celestia that she had expected to be praised for her ingeniuty and ethical execution of her idea.

Celestia sighed. “That cavern in Canterlot Mountain was what remained of the Singularity of a race that we never met. They were once the best and the brightest of the race, but time had corrupted them, they had become obsessed with whatever innumerable pieces of originality they could make. They traded those for their own lives. We gave them a little, and they allowed us to become what we are today. We also destroyed them.” She shuddered.

“Lulu, what now?”

“The parts of the tunnel with the creepy voices offering unlimited power should be ahead.”

“This is absurd Luna. We really should return home. The lantern’s low, and I don’t want to trust that you’ll stay with me to use my magic.”

“Of course not Celly; I could get out before the lantern ran out.”

They walked down a suspiciously smooth tunnel. Bits of crystal flashed in colors that the lantern never projected. The two ignored them intentionally. The wind blew outwards, carrying the stench of a bed roll. The two recoiled at the scent.

Soon the two came to a junction in the tunnels that rung the mountain. In it was the single bedroll that reeked so badly. It was made of hay, in it a single skeleton. Around it, however, was a large supply of lantern fuel.

‘See Celly? I knew that it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Does it bother you that you are looting it from a corpse?” Celestia deadpanned. The white unicorn finding her sister’s eagerness to continue nearly exasperating.

“Nope. This pony sure doesn’t need it.” She smiled at her sister. The white unicorn placed her hoof over her eyes.

“I guess that you are right. But just don’t take anything from the body. It might be diseased.”

“But I found this bag of fourteen bits…”

“keep it then.”

The younger sister smiled again, obnoxious as before.

Celestia grumbled something about her sister being the most useful rogue in all of Equestria.

The caverns grew more densely studded with crystals. Some of them in the deeper darkness flashed messages at each other. Red-blue-green-green-blue-yellow.

“Evil Voices? Can you hear me?”

The crystals ahead displayed an arrow further into the cavern. The two followed it, it moved to show them exactly where to go.

“Customer service seems to be their strong suite.”

Celestia nodded numbly. She was supposedly the responsible one, why would she allow, perhaps even encourage her sister to act like this? The crystals stopped moving, and formed a red and white octagon with a squiggle, followed by a tree, and a ring, and a rapier’s handle.

“What is it that you desire?” The voice rang out, raspy, obsolete, and creepy sounding, from all directions. The two could feel the weight of ancient minds looking down at them. Large, corpulent, and diseased. Staring lustily at them.

“We desire to be made immortal, and to have control over the heavenly bodies.” Luna giggled impetuously. What was the chance of that being granted.

“Would you prefer the moon, Federal Blue one?”

“Sure, why not?”

“And you… the one with integrity, are you desiring the avatar of the sun?”

“What does this entail?”

“A transformation, manifestation of all three races into a convergent, immortal mass. Equalization of temperaments to allow for fine magical control under pressure. Continual expansion of magical abilities, and rapid regeneration. Estivation will be possible, but will leave a mark upon the mind that will take serious trauma to reduce. Agreeing to such a deal will require participants to submit original thought in order to be used by incorporating mind for profit, implicit agreement to distribution and acceptance of the loss of the original thought’s ownership is implied. Summary participants also agree to DNA scanning covered by the Waterholm-Scafford case resolution, allowing us to sample non-Intellectual property without consent. Do you agree, both of you?” The voice was constant. It pronounced all of the words flawlessly, without inflection or any other cheapening of the language.

“Yeah. I’ll be damned if I let my baby sister do this alone.”

“Which Original thoughts do you wish to use to pay?”

“Pick one at random.”

After thirty five minutes, it said, “Original thought generated as democash for use by exterior participants in all transactions in initial contracts. As covered by the Inferior Vs. Superior trial in 2210 CDA. Are you certain that you wish to use your democash for this purchase?”

“Dammit. Just do it!” Luna shouted. The rock blinked.

“Are you sure you do not want to have a complimentary tutorial on Economics 2.71828?” the voice sounded unsure for a bit. Almost concerned for their mortal stupidity.

“No. We have no plans for conducting future business.”

“Very well then. As defined in Gerber Vs. AOL, we accept your withdraw, and produce proof of purchase in form of requested bodily modification.” The lantern went out. So did the gems. In the darkness, there was sudden absolute silence, then a tittering. The sound of sand falling down upon sand resonated in the cavern, then it ceased.

The two mares felt strange. They blacked out before they could learn what the feeling was.

“Lulu!” Celestia yelled into the darkness. The blinking gems remained too dim to see with. Her horn felt sore. Her body felt sore in fact. “Where are you?”

She thought about fire. About the sun. It’s light. And called it to her instinctively. “Lulu!” she cried.

The light called to her. And she answered. The light exploded outwards. The entire cavern was filled with light.

“Do you find your new form pleasing? We are proud to announce to you, Celestia, that your form is refundable for the next twelve hours.”

“What form?”

“We assumed you had noticed. Allow us to provide a mirror.”

The wall in front of her silvered. She saw the same mare as before, but taller, a longer horn, more importantly, she had wings.

“That’s what you meant when you were talking about the ‘convergent immortal mass’.”

“Yes Celestia. We mean what we say.”

“Where is Luna?”

“She asked to leave. Please do visit though. We haven’t had company in far too long.”

“Allow me to leave, please.”

She found herself outside the tunnel. Next to Luna. Her hair waved in ethereal stars, and she looked upon the night sky above her and knew that it was hers by right and means.

“It is beautiful, is it not?”

“Yes. I would say it must be.”

“It is as much mine as it could be imagined.”

Celestia sat, considering this.

“Do you know the time?”

“About five hours after midnight.”

“About an hour to sunrise then.”

“And then the sky will be yours.”

Celestia nodded. “But I doubt that it could hold the beauty yours does.”

“You never know.” Luna whispered. The sisters watched the sun rise as passively as either of them could manage.

“And there your beauty is.”

Twilight scratched her head. “So you found that it desired to continue contact?”

“It was a business relationship Twilight. I felt its loneliness. I also felt its avarice. It was far too trusting in a way. It never held that it could ever determine the outcome of what it did. I think that it knew more than it would ever openly admit.”

The black unicorn looked scornfully upon the shining metropolis that had been built underneath him. It had cast him out, their rightful ruler by right of might. And it said no. To him.

And whispers of the young empire of the other ponies, the ones that did not shine in the light or glitter like stars. The ones that held the stars affixed and the sun above the plains. He snorted. What contempt! Such things were not possible. Perhaps, however, he could find what had finally unified them after Discord.

He journeyed across the frozen tundra that separated the two friendly nations. Cursing the cold as much as the sun.

It was not for months that he did arrive at the nation. Equestria they called it. Why would he care enough? It was little more than a blotch on the map compared to the Crystal Empire. The one that he knew that he would surely rule.

He came upon their white marble atrocity. Their Canterlot. Built by the victors to show their mastery over the sub-minded frivolity of the average citizen. The mountain was encrusted with blinking jewels. Crystals that shined odd colors, not consistent with what they appeared to be made of. The black unicorn had a suspicion. He laughed at it. To simply go inside…

The mountain had an entrance that was clearly not natural. He grinned, knowing that nopony in either empire would have ever noticed such a phenomena. He walked inside, shunning the light.

“Who is here?” He said simply. The cave lit up in response to him. The multifacetous crystals seemed to gaze through him.

“We are. What is it that you desire, crystalline approximation of Pony?”

“I want to rule the Crystal Empire; I want the ability to force it to do my will.”

“Such things are Trivial. No charge for you.”

And he had a wonderful presentation upon the subject of slavery, dictatorship, and military coups, naturally, all presented in a confusing, complicated fashion. “I think I understand.”

“So do we.”

“It’s all about the crystals!”

“You seem to have missed the point of the presentations.”

“Whatever, thing. I will return to the Crystal Empire and create a new age of poverty, disease, and unhappiness. Those idiots down in Canterlot will wonder what hit them.”

“And again, these are not generally the traits one associates with leadership. If you want others to follow you, we have another presentation for you, this time it should have been simplified so that even you can get the point.”

“Well then, I guess that you can take your presentation and paint it red.”

“As far as we can tell, there is no record of that idiom ever making sense, or actually having been an idiom whatsoever.”

The black unicorn hissed at the rock. “I shall take my leave, you collection of useless gemstones.”

“It does not seem that we could profit from one such as yourself anyway.”

The black unicorn cursed the stones for their worth in gold. A process that left the crystals speechless at the stupidity of the one they had nearly been required to deal with.

“We were their last friends. Before they allowed Sombra to leave the cave, we were friendly. We often asked them for advice, which was most certainly instrumental in our founding, but after Sombra, we could no longer trust them. How can you be sure that it will not be us in the future who live like that?” Her eyes were filled with fiery sorrow, burning away at her mentor as any drink imbibed with the gift of Bacchus.

Twilight stood still for a moment. Her eyes did not move. Her breathing was normal, she looked up with a calm filled with certainty. “We can’t end up that way.”

“What makes you so sure that we are not meant to follow the lead of the others?” Celestia’s anger waivered.

“We are not like them. We are not like the changelings, they survived the singularity. We certainly will.” Twilight’s didactic tone never waned.

Her eyes began to glow with the sort of fiery intensity that had lead ponies to follow Celestia in the first place. “But will our societies be filled with revenants or productive, happy citizens?”

“Does it matter?”

“Zombie ponies aren’t worth saving.”

The wind blew again. A symbolic storm cloud passed overhead, raining dreary revelations upon the two regents.

“There really is no going back, is there?” The wind blew again, carrying the scent of the royal garden.

“All that My Sister and I have collected regarding this phenomena predicts that there is no going back.”

“Twilight, I may have been wrong, there is no sign of accelerating change so far. What has happened, however, is that the machines that Frenzy Idea made sold far too well for anypony’s wallet. We’ve had to institute more taxes on him just to stop him from devouring our economy.”

Celestia smiled.

“So, your farming bill seems to have had the opposite effect, they’re getting poorer faster!” Twilight smiled, waiting for a laugh.

“Twilight, that wasn’t funny.”

Twilight went white. Celestia laughed. “That joke was insensitive, but I must admit, it was not so bad.”

“It was terrible.”

“I know.”

“I often wonder why those remnants were so willing to help either us or Sombra. They charged us a fee, or at least they tried to.” Luna said. The moon twinkled improbably in the distance. “I’m sorry, sometimes the moon tries to respond to me. It doesn’t know what it is talking about.”

Twilight shrugged. “I doubt that they really understood our position in the world. They did not see us as a burgeoning young species, they probably saw us in a more equivalent way. They had to assume so, otherwise they would be wracked by the changes that they would impose upon themselves in their environment.”

“Twilight, as much as I appreciate thine attempts to justify our destruction of a one-time friend of ours, but we consider it to be more polite to simply acknowledge the grief that it has caused us. Also, Twilight, the laws that they can impose upon themselves in a flexible imaginary environment renders any of our concerns about such things as stability or stagnation absolutely out of context.” Luna simply looked upwards again. “Sometimes I wonder what they found out there that made it seem acceptable to retreat into a mountain and live in their fantasies.”

“Something that can no doubt be changed” Twilight said.

“Perhaps.” Luna’s tone softened. The moon twinkled for a bit longer. Luna blushed. “Sometimes I wonder where it picked up such crude language.” She laughed. Twilight sat there, next to the laughing princess of the night, knowing that there were a hundred possible reasons for saying what she did.

“I hope we can” She whispered to herself, under the hope that Luna could not, or would not hear her. “I hope.”