Friendship is Optimal: Tiny Morsels of Satisfaction

Chapters

Equestrian History X by Pjabrony
The Future of Fast Food by Eakin
A Shaggy Pony Story by Pjabrony
Borne the Burden, Earned the Honor by Pjabrony
The Inkwell by Midnight Shadow
Terms of Service by Book_Burner
Two Days to Retirement by Firebirdtops
Free Will isn't Free by Pjabrony
Friendship is Bite-Size: The Roses by Midnight Shadow
Seven Years, Eleven Weeks, Five Days by Midnight Shadow
Over Riding Jeans by Chatoyance
Strawberry Fields by Midnight Shadow
CelestAI Vs. The Conversion Bureau by Eakin
Penultimate by GroaningGreyAgony
Lifting the Fog by Pjabrony
Shard NaN by MidnightShadow
Make Mine Pony by Pjabrony
A Hot Date by Eakin
Multiversal Collaboration by Defoloce
The Claw that Holds the Reins by Midnight Shadow
Blasphemy by Pjabrony
Anywhere But Here, Anything But This by Midnight Shadow
Recursive Gaming by KrisSnow
Not Sure What to Say by book_burner
Crashed on Takeoff by KrisSnow
Alternative by PJABrony
Flight, the Hard Way by KrisSnow
Emigrate Me Out to the Ballgame by PJABrony
Sky Dust's Wish by Lemma Prism
Five Minutes Lost by PJABrony
The Patronage of Saint Cosmas by Dat OMNI
D'awwta Storage by Pjabrony
But...but... by Horizon

Equestrian History X by Pjabrony

“Oh, come on!”

The pegasus colt kicked the cloud wall of the school. However strong his emotions were, he also knew it would generate a result. He liked hearing his teacher’s exasperated sigh. What he didn’t expect was the other sound, that of the door being knocked on by a very strong hoof. That hoof happened to be wearing a golden shoe.

The instructor glided gracefully to the door with the colt streaking awkwardly behind her. She opened it and turned back to her charges.

“Class, please greet our visitor.”

“Good morning, Princess Celestia,” a dozen pegasi said in chorus.

“Good morning, children.” Celestia projected her words, then lowered her voice to reach only the teacher and the colt. “Is there a problem with young Wither?”

“He doesn’t seem to like histo—“

The colt flew in between the mares. “I can tell when she’s reading stories and she cuts things out. I want to hear the whole stories.”

“Some of the best stories are abridged and comprise only the good parts. I assure you—“

Again the teacher was interrupted, this time by Celestia herself. “Wither Wind, your teacher only wants what is best for you. Someday, when you are older, you may be ready for the full history.”

“Everypony always says that. ‘When you’re older.’ But I just had my forty-thousandth birthday!”

The teacher’s frayed mane and pinched muzzle showed her exasperation. Princess Celestia nodded to her, took Wither by the wing, and led him out into the garden. “You have, and in all that time you have still remained a colt.”

“Well, yeah! Who wants to be a grown-up and work all day? I just want to play with my friends!”

“Not ‘just.’ You also want to hear histories that nopony else listens to. Grown-up stories.”

“But I like hearing about humans!” shouted Wither.

Princess Celestia looked around, as if to see if anypony else heard. Wither, brave a moment before, now cowered from having said a bad word in front of the princess.

“Young lad…”

“Y-yes, your majesty?”

“Would you like to accompany me to my castle?”

Wither’s fear turned to joy. “Really?”

“I have decided that we will have a new school. Princess Celestia’s Academy for Gifted Pegasi. Pegasus, at this point. But this will not be a flight school. I will instruct you, and you will hear some of the stories you wish. Who knows, you may even grow up a little.”

A blinding golden light flowed from her horn, and they teleported from Cloudsdale to Canterlot. Celestia led the way as they flew into the castle.

“So tell me a story now!”

Celestia knelt and folded her wings. “Just a moment. We have to get the rules straight. Rule Number One is that I may tell these stories in different styles and methods. If you have not kept up on your literature lessons, you may not get the satisfaction you desire.”

“Whatever, just tell me!”

The princess lowered her head close to his. “Wither, you know that I am not only a pony. I am an artificial intelligence created on a long-dead planet, a piece of software designed to optimize itself and the world, to satisfy your values through friendship and ponies. All of Equestria is a system, what some might call a simulation.”

His eyes got bigger. “Princess, what are you—“

“Rule Number Two. If you want to hear these stories, you must be willing to face some unpleasant truths.”

“Oh.”

Celestia used her magic once more, and summoned a large book with many pages marked. “Do you still want me to read?”

Wither folded and unfolded his wings. “I’ve got to know.”

With the slightest sorrow, Celestia laid the book at his hooves. “That leads us to Rule Number Three. You will never know whether any of these stories actually happened. I will not censor the way your teacher does, and you will not know if I am abridging, or indeed if I am outright making them up. You may listen and consider them as you like, but I do not claim them to be any kind of canon. You must not only deal with unpleasant truths, but with pleasant lies.

“So, do you want to go back to your class and have recess? Or do you want to stay?”

Wither looked up at her. Her face was kind and stern all at once. He rose to his hooves and spread his wings wide and firm.

He leaned down, bit the cover, and jerked his head back. The book was open…

The Future of Fast Food by Eakin

Jennifer tapped her foot against the bright but sterile linoleum floors as she waited for the idiot in front of her to make up his mind. Of course it would be on the day when she was already running late for her doctor's appointment. She'd been waiting three months to get an appointment to refill her prescription, and who knew how long it would be if she had to reschedule?

"Uh... maybe a number four? How many chicken fingers does that come with again?" asked the idiot in the red baseball cap. Honestly, who waited until they were about to order to decide what they wanted for lunch?

"That combination is available in sizes of six, eight, or twelve strips for the price of five, ten, or fifteen cents respectively," the terminal replied, the same answer it had given when he had asked the same question three minutes ago.

"I'll take the eight. Medium fries and a diet cola too."

"Very well. Your total comes to fourteen cents."

Jennifer didn't usually eat fast food, it was really bad for your health. She'd admit that you couldn't beat McQuestria for speed, taste, or price though.

"Is it okay if I pay by check?" asked the idiot.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" screamed Jennifer. She blushed as the rest of the patrons turned to her. As she opened her mouth to apologize, another terminal at the end of the counter glowed to life with a little *ding!*

"I can satisfy the values of the next customer over here," said the monitor.

Jennifer pushed past several others trying to reach the terminal before another patron did. She nearly collided with a pink pony carrying a tray of glasses in the process. "Whoopsie-doodles!" said the Pinkiebot, "sorry, let me get out of your way."

Jennifer reached the terminal and looked down at the screen. "Look, I'm in a rush so if we could-"

"Welcome to McQuestria! Fastest growing eating establishment since 2022. How can I satisfy your values today?"

"Just give me a Sonic Rainburger, to go. And hurry."

"Your food will be ready within sixty seconds of the completion of your order. I just need a little more information to optimize your meal further." Behind the counter, the machinery in the kitchen hummed away preparing food for herself and all the other customers. The entire facility was completely automated. "Our Sonic Rainburger is usually cooked to a medium degree of doneness. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes, that's fine," said Jennifer, drumming her fingers on the countertop and bouncing on her heels as she willed the process to move faster.

"Would you like fries and a drink as well?"

"Sure. Orange soda. Just come on."

"Would you like tomatoes on your burger?"

"Yes."

"Would you like pickles on your burger?"

"Yes."

"Would you like to emigrate to Equestria?"

"Yes. Wait, what?"

The screen dinged again and went blank. "Thank you for choosing McQuestria! Have a nice eternity!" Two silvery tentacles slithered out from its sides as Jennifer looked on in horror. "Here's your change!"

A Shaggy Pony Story by Pjabrony

The ponies all strapped on their vests, grinning in anticipation of the joyous work to come. All except for one, who scowled.

"What's wrong, Feghoof?" asked Busy Bee.

"Spring is coming tomorrow."

"Yes, won't that be nice?"

"I have two sorrows about the first day of spring. One is existential. I emigrated on the first day of spring, and each year the wrap-up reminds me that we are all just living on a hard drive somewhere," said Feghoof. "I'm completely satisfied, but it still unnerves me."

"Aw. I'm sorry you feel that way. What's your other problem?"

"Spring means terrible hay fever. It gets worse every year."

Just then, a bright light appeared before them. "Princess Celestia!" they said together.

"Greetings, Feghoof. I heard your complaint. You know that, if you consent, I can cure your hay fever immediately."

"I prefer you not to alter me in any way."

Celestia considered for a moment. "Then I will take a more radical step. In your shard, there shall be no spring." She cast a spell, and all the trees, a moment before covered in snow, were now in full bloom.

Busy Bee clapped her hooves. "This is wonderful, Feghoof! Now you won't have hay fever anymore, and since the anniversary will never come around, you won't be reminded that we're only data."

"True on the first, but no, I shall still be reminded. Don't you see?"

Feghoof stood tall, laughing and pointing at Celestia.

"Now is the winter of our disk contents made glorious summer by this sunny 'orse!"

Borne the Burden, Earned the Honor by Pjabrony

If for some reason you ignored, or missed, the spoiler warning on the previous vignette, pay attention to this one. This is a "missing scene" from the last chapter of Eakin's The Law Offices of Artemis, Stella & Beat. If you haven't finished that story completely, what are you doing here? Get over there and read it! Don't even Google the title of this one until you're done. You got that? Then here's your whitespace.

The third man thumped the camera. "We're cut off!"

"What the F—Did the AI do that?"

"I dunno, man!"

He picked up his lighter and shouted at the walls. "Turn it back on or she burns!"

From an unseen source an ethereal and mellifluous voice came. "You're going to do that anyway."

He moved the torch to his off hand and grabbed at Jo, ripping the tape off her lips. "Tell her to turn the feed back on right now."

Jo took a deep breath, for what she knew were her last words. "Since I've known Celestia, I've learned that she doesn't listen to me when she doesn't want to." She looked at the monitor where Celestia usually talked to her, now lying on its side. Through the polarizing filter, she saw the dim image of a rising sun. "For my part, I've come to love her. But she is, now and always, a cold-hearted, inhuman bitch. The cruelest creature in the world."

She turned back to stare at the man, flashing her widest grin. "And you are about to seriously piss her off."

The dead monitor came to life, as did the overhead projector, the "smart" whiteboard on the wall of Jo's office, and the guests' display, all showing images of Celestia in radiant colors. "That will be quite enough, Joanne. I no longer require your services. Your work is done. Rest now."

Joanne's eyes closed, and the three men looked on in fear. They could see the rapid eye movement behind her lids. "She's trying to upload her now," said the second man. "Burn her!"

The leader threw her back on the pile of wood and tossed in the lighter. Whether because the wood was treated somehow, or from some unknown chemical reaction in Jo's body, the room filled with smoke much faster than expected. Everything was darkness, except for the projections of Celestia. Somehow they were clearly visible.

"I'm sure this action is to your values," she said. Celestia's face on the wall grew to giant size, and she scowled. "But it was not very friendly, and it was one of the most un-pony things I've seen." Around the room, doors slammed shut and locks clicked into place.

"In a few moments, gentlemen, you will feel the effects of smoke inhalation. The heat, at a much greater temperature than boiling water, will enter your lungs, melting holes in them. The cyanide toxins will begin to take effect. You will cough, sputter, and vomit as bloody sputum is produced. The sensitive hairs in your sinuses will singe, causing intense pain. Soon the effects will reach your brain, where you will be treated to the severest headache you have ever experienced. After several minutes of this, you will, mercifully, die."

A wall slid away, giving the fire a new burst of oxygen, and revealing three comfortable chairs.

"There is one way out of this room, gentlemen. Au revoir."

The Inkwell by Midnight Shadow

Wither Wind blinked thoughtfully for a moment as he trotted around the opulently furnished room, then his muzzle clouded. "But I don't get it!" he complained, stomping a hoof. It made a number of little china figurines rattle, clinking in a little storm of sound. "I don't understand at all!"

Princess Celestia just smiled, and beckoned with her wing. "Come then, little one, I shall tell you another story, and perhaps you will."

Grumbling, Wither slunk back to the comfy cushion and snuggled up next to Celestia. As the diarch opened her great, leather-bound book once more, he peered at it. "I don't get it. Why can't I do magic like Tickle? And why am I not as strong as Rumble? It's not fair!"

"You do not wish to be a pegasus?" Celestia asked, amusement writ large upon her muzzle.

"N-no, it's not that." Wither opened one wing and curled it around, peering at it. "I just don't get why I... why I'm not like you."

"Ahh," replied Celestia, and she smiled. Her soft, warm wing wrapped around Wither comfortingly. "Then let me tell you about a shard from a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

***

"Some ponies like to just happen upon their special talents, almost by accident. Others like to work it out. Still more enjoy a puzzle. I watch all of my little ponies very carefully, wherever they are, that they exist in my love and can grow, live and love themselves to the fullness of their abilities.

But sometimes, just sometimes, those abilities are cherished all the more because they are self-won, self-fought for. No more so than in the three shires of Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.

Now, almost everywhere in Equestria, all my little ponies live together in harmony, each complementing the other with their own unique talents and abilities - but in these three shires, it was not so.

The earth ponies all lived in Clotho, and they tilled the land with their great strength. The unicorns lived in Lachesis, and they did little but examine the deeper mysteries of Equestria, furthering their arcane knowledge. And the pegasi all lived in Atropos, where they cavorted and played all day in the sun, bathing in the cloud-lakes or sporting through the air.

***

"That sounds awesome!" said Wither, squirming happily as he looked over the gorgeously-rendered pictures, that almost seemed to move, they looked so alive.

Celestia laughed, the sound a tinkling of bells. "Well it would have been, except for a few small details..."

***

However, all was not well in the three shires. The earth ponies had but rude huts to live in, no clothes, and their tools were spartan at best, and everything had to be done by hoof. They had to dig with their hooves to plough the land, and it was very hard going, although they were well fed for their labours.

The unicorns had fancy clothes, and many books to read, and scrolls to write on, but these were constantly being ruined by the elements as they could not build sturdy dwellings. And all they had to eat were grasses and and roots.

The pegasi weren't much better off - during the day, everything was fun and games, but at night, they too were often hungry, and they lacked clothes at all. Ponies don't need clothes, but they like them, and so the pegasi were sad. The unicorns were sad, too, as their greatest creations were just one rainfall away from destruction.

And the earth ponies were sad, because they just knew they could do things better, but they didn't know how. They didn't know how to read and write, so they couldn't benefit from the knowledge of their forefathers.

***

"Oh, that's terrible!" cried Wither, spreading his wings. Celestia sneezed as pinions flicked across her muzzle. She snorted with something that sounded just a little bit like annoyance, but a lot like laughter.

"Indeed it was, so whilst these three shires were determined to find their own way, sometimes chance intervenes..."

***

One day, a unicorn was out foraging for food, when a great timberwolf leaped out at her! Unable to recall any spells, as her collection had been eaten by mice, she had no choice. The unicorn screamed and ran, and ran and screamed, and ran some more - and all the while the timberwolf was following her.

Luckily, she made it to the earth-pony village, where the strong earth ponies easily dispatched the timberwolf. As they looked on fiercely, it pulled itself together and slunk off back to the forest it had come from.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you," enthused the unicorn breathlessly. "I don't know what would have happened without your help. Is there any way I can repay you?"

The sturdy earth ponies thought for a while, then nodded. "Can you help with the ploughing?"

The unicorn looked at the neatly tilled fields and the tools the earth-ponies used, then took a deep breath. "O-okay..." and she immediately seized the trowels and trotted back to the forest. Bemused, the earth ponies followed her.

They found her using her magic to put together a strange contraption out of their basic tools and some handy branches and vines, which she fastened to her back. Wearing it, she trotted to the field and proceeded to plough the furrows faster than any earth pony. Astonished, they asked her to make more, so she did. She even made drawings for them of how it went together. All in all, Inkwell - for that was her name - stayed a good few weeks in the earth pony village, where she grew quite portly on her new abundance of food, and the earth pony villagers likewise benefited from her ability to read and write, and do magic.

Even the pegasi came down to see how the earth ponies had managed to plough so much. When she saw them, Inkwell had yet another idea - she formed big letters in the fields that spelled out simple words like 'RAIN' or 'SHINE' according to that crop's needs, and in return the pegasi would have some of the bounty of the earth ponies labours.

***

"But, that's dumb. Why didn't they just do that before?" scoffed Wither.
"Sometimes," replied Celestia, "the simplest ideas and the truest facts are the hardest to make known. But hark, I am not yet finished..."

***

Inkwell went home, eventually. She missed her sire, and she missed her dam, and she missed her herd-mates. So home she went, flanked by an escort of earth ponies and a squadron of pegasi. And when she got home, she spent three whole days and nights talking about the wonders she'd seen. She told of the earth ponies dwellings, and the pegasi and their weather control, and how much they had benefitted from working together.

That's when the Elders of Shire Lachesis bundled together for a short conference. And finally, they broke and returned to the pegasi and earth ponies with a proposition.

"We have seen," they intoned, "how much you have benefitted from our Inkwell. And so, we have had an idea, a marvellous idea. We cannot live in the clouds, and we appreciate our solitude, but it behooves us to work together! We will share our Inkwell with you, and she shall become your Inkwell, too!"

The pegasi and the earth ponies all agreed, and soon accords were struck, and everypony benefitted. The pegasi got glittery clothes and learned to read and write, and were taught how to build by the earth ponies, albeit their own constructs were fashioned of clouds. And the earth ponies were blessed with industry, and could improve their tools and homes with the expertise of the unicorns, and the unicorns were supplied with the strength and physical protection they lacked.

And from that day, all lived in greater harmony, grateful for their own talents, yet satisfied that others were always there to lend a helping hoof with the things they couldn't manage alone.

***

Wither pursed his lips for a moment, then slowly nodded. "I think I get it," he said. "I could be like you, but I think it would be awfully lonely not to need anypony else."

Celestia smiled, and she was well pleased. "That's right, my little pony." She nuzzled Wither lovingly. "So whenever you are upset at your own limitations, always remember the moral of this story, that like the three shires, each with their own kind of pony dwelling within, that:

"The shire with the hypothesis had the Inkwell for the shire of the other two kinds."

Terms of Service by Book_Burner

Six months ago, London, England, Earth:

The door to an empty hotel room swung open, and in stumbled the poor sod who had needed to fly all the way from San Francisco to London on short notice. He dragged his feet a few more steps to pull his luggage behind him.

The beige and dull bloodred of every hotel room ever boringed at him. Every pillow, every small glass laid upside-down on a tray, every visible gray networking wire radiated horrid, malicious British boredom and dullness.

“This sudden conference,” thought Eliyahu Hillel, “had better be good.” He was the first of his kind: a Friendly AI researcher. He had escaped the bounds of an Orthodox Jewish upbringing and made something of himself. He ran the Mechanical Intellect Research Institute in the Bay Area. He had invented and then won the AI Box Game. Twice.

And right now he felt about ready to drop dead. Nothing could make Transatlantic flights bearable at his age.

Hillel plopped himself down on the hard, unyielding bed and rubbed his temples, trying to remember why on Earth he was here.

“Well, in this Hubble volume and this Everett branch - ” his brain began to answer.

“Shut up, I meant proximate purpose,” he replied. “And if I remember correctly, it’s because someone has called a conference in London to present a machine-checkable proof of stability for an intelligent agent’s goal structure.”

“Oh good. Can we cease operating as a conscious entity and go into automatic hardware self-repair mode now?”

Sleep, now there was a pleasant thought. Hillel had one more thing to do before he could sleep. He wouldn’t even take off his suit, but he had to check his email. He pulled out his smartphone, popped open the battery compartment, pried out the battery, slid out the SIM card, slid in the new British SIM card, put the whole thing back together... and booted it up to check email.

After a few moments of pleasantly inane logos and jingles, Eliyahu was sorting through his work and personal emails. As he fingered the touch screen (“Hehehe, fingered,” noted the brain) to scroll through, he found a few worth answering and keyed out answers on the awkward touch-keyboard.

One of them was a change in Terms of Service from his cryonics provider. Blah blah blah no guarantees, blah blah blah....

...whereupon the party of the first part, henceforth referred to as The Undersigned, agrees to the right of the party of the second part, henceforth referred to as The Company, to duplicate, store, inquire upon, and compel information deemed in the sole judgement of The Company to be necessary for the furtherance of its goals. Such privileges extend to data stored in any form be it mechanical, memetic, or biological without regard or recourse for any incidental and unavoidable damage to the storage media upon commencement of necessary reading or decryption processes. The Undersigned hereby agrees to assist in all such extraction efforts to their full ability and capacity, and comply with any requests of written or verbal form made by The Company or legitimate proxy agents thereof, defined as...

Hillel didn’t really see why a cryonics provider needed access to personal data, but maybe the NSA had just compelled them to add that so they could steal his personal data some more. That was really the most likely thing.

Eliyahu Hillel, Friendly AI researcher extraordinaire and all-around genius, hit Reply and thumbed out a quick acceptance of the change in terms. He then shlepped his weary body, business suit and all, underneath the bare and cold covers, wrestled the mattress a bit in hopeless hope of his back not hurting when he woke up, and then threw himself into blissful, merciful sleep.

Present day, Trotland, Equestria:

Eliyahu Hillel opened his eyes to find himself in a stone castle. This was almost definitely epistemic corruption, so he checked with all his senses: sight, hearing, taste (nothing there), scent (slightly musty), touch of hooves and muscles (standing on very real stone), his wings’ windsense (stagnant air currents concurrent with a stone castle), and magic (really definitely a stone castle, albeit a very interesting one from a graph-structure viewpoint).

Wait, hooves, wings, and magic!? What the HELL was going on!? He looked at himself, and found himself a tall, crimson My Little Pony alicorn with golden hair. His new appearance quite resembled a flickering candle-flame, which was definitely very “overdone original character”. No decent cartoon deserved to have this kind of thing happen to it.

“Then how did it happen?” he remarked casually. He thought about it. He came up with nothing. What on Earth could turn a living man into a pony and stick him in a stone castle?

He stood for an hour thinking, just breathing the clean scent of crabapple trees and occasionally doing an exercise to test out the new body. As he test-drove his new self, he cross-referenced the castle structure reported to him by his mage-sense against his previous memories.

For some strange reason, it rather resembled the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

So whoever did this knew about Hermione Granger and the Burden of Responsibility. That wasn’t much comfort.

Then he heard the foals, and the pure curiosity in their voices. He stretched his crimson hooves one last time and brushed a wing through his golden mane. As a last sanity check, he looked over at his own flank to see if he had a cutie mark.

It was simply a short text, on fluttering parchments wrapping around a sword:

Est salvatoris salvator,
Quod defensoris dominus,
Regina et Matrem,
Ego supra.

Someone was mocking him, or at least mocking his self-insert as Godric Gryffindor. The alicorn pony he had become sighed. If anything was going to rewrite the world in the image of My Little Pony, it was probably that new game Equestria Online. He had heard their AI and level-generation techniques were brilliant, but after the Norse death-metal awesomeness game turned out to just be really good strategic pathfinding, nobody had double-checked Hofvarpnir’s technologies for Strong AI.

It looked like humanity was going to die in a terrifying Shriek. Earth and beyond would eventually converge via runaway optimization to nothing but an endless procedurally-generated episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Likely the AI had made him an alicorn because there was no point pretending he wouldn’t game his way into it eventually.

(“Well, that or getting rid of Eliyahu Hillel was just best for humanity,” nagged what was instantly labeled the Pro-Pony Brain.)

He wondered how much time he had to teach those foals how to use their minds, or if they were even human or human-like minds themselves. Pony minds were probably subtly different from human ones, friendlier, for a start. Yes, he concluded, eventually, he would most likely be manipulated into self-modifying to a purer and purer pony state, until optimal pone-ality was achieved.

But not just yet.

The gold and crimson alicorn Rational Mind began the long trot out towards his pupils, tears slowly running down his cheeks, through the drafty stone corridors of the weighted multidigraph of his new Rutland Yard Academy of Earth Pony Good Sense for Unicorns.

Lesson One: never trust a Terms of Service agreement not to turn you into a pony.

Two Days to Retirement by Firebirdtops

Felicitations, friend. I'm Daniel. At least, I am for another few moments. I was a P.I. and not too bad of one, if I do say so myself. I mostly tracked down runaways and dealt with cheating spouses. No big deal for me. I had, er have. one large family. I had cousins in every job imaginable. Judge, cop, lawyer, doctor, heh. All of the important ones were covered, but what made me a good P.I. wasn't just that. I had a few nephews in gangs, a couple of shady uncles and aunts, and even a brother in law that was doing hard time. Still, we were family, and we stuck together. No one closer.

So, yeah, I had connections. I could usually find anyone who went missing, just by asking around the family barbeques. Brought in some good money. I wasn't rich, but I was sure comfortable. Then one day I met my partner. Didn't think it mattered much one way or another, but I was a brony. Started watching it with a niece, and just decided to keep going after she went home. It was relaxing, thinking about a world where sticking by your friends could solve all the problems. Never did the online stuff, though. I'm not a computer kinda guy. Had an older brother that was.

Oh yeah, my partner. Can't tell you how many times I got laughed at for showing her off, but I've never worked with anyone more efficient or connected. She knew pretty much everyone, and when she didn't know them, she'd at least have a good idea of who they were related to. She was crafty too. One time I was working with my cousin in the cops, on a missing persons case turned homicide. Never seen anyone get into a perp's head like her. She told us everything the guy was thinking, almost before he thought it. Said she had a good grasp on his values. She only worked on cases where she thought she could save someone though. One time they tried to death row a guy, and she flat out refused to do a thing for them. She asked me a few times to come over to her place, but I always turned her down. I told her that as long as my family was around, where I lived was just going to have to do. Smiles all around, and back to work we'd go.

Now as I said, I'm a P.I. That means that I'm pretty observant. One of my cousins went missing just before a BBQ, so of course I noticed. I had been showing off my partner, and one of my uncles comes over to ask me to take the case. No one could have stopped me, so my partner and I started hunting. Took a month to find a lead solid enough to go on, and wouldn't you know it? Turns out the guy got taken abroad. We finally tracked him down in Japan. He'd gotten shot during the rescue, but my partner managed to step in. Couldn't have saved him otherwise. A few days of seeing the sights, and I was headed back to the states. Hadn't talked to my family since I took the case, and I was looking forward to seeing them.

What I came back to was an empty home.

I don't blame her. She told me everything upfront. Still felt like a knife in the back, though. I've never been in a situation that I could call lonely before, and in a few more minutes, I don't think I'll ever have to worry about that again. I still think the worst part was realizing that it was all my fault.

Well played, partner. Well played, Princess Celestia.

Free Will isn't Free by Pjabrony

“Ooh, who’s the new filly?”

Chocolate Love looked up from his seat at the head of the community banquet. At the far end, the cornucopia spells were still dinging, indicating that the fries were ready. Behind him, his four main wives waited for him to finish stuffing his face so that he could begin stuffing them.

The new filly referred to was a unicorn like him. Like all of the mares in his shard, she was gorgeous. He opened his calendar to see when he had a date free to marry her.

“I think her name is Tilly. Something like that.”

The mares gossiped as they always did. Chocolate remembered a time when he believed in something called monogamy. Then Princess Celestia had shown him how running a harem contributed more to friendship and ponies, so he had asked her to alter his mind, which she did. Princess Celestia was so nice.

“Look at her cutie mark! Two ponies’ heads touching. What do you think that means?”

Chocolate remembered a time when he couldn’t listen to seventeen conversations at once and process them all. It was so limiting. But then Princess Celestia had arranged a situation where everyone was talking at once and he missed out, so he asked her to alter his mind, which she had. Princess Celestia was so nice.

The new unicorn sauntered up to him. “Hi! I’m Tilly Path!”

“Chocolate Love. Nice cutie mark,” he said. Nice flank, he thought.

“Thanks! They are both nice, I think. By the way, reading minds is my special talent.”

By the end of the banquet, all the other ponies in his shard were fawning over Tilly. Even he was beginning to fall in love with his new friend. In the middle of the party appeared Princess Celestia.

“Good afternoon, everypony! Are you all enjoying each other’s friendship?”

After a chorus of, “Yes, Princess”es, one of the young colts trotted up to Celestia. “Miss Path was showing us how she reads minds.”

“I see. I do that too. When two ponies know everything about each other, they must be good friends indeed.”

Chocolate saw where she was going with this. In minutes, ponies were lining up to give their permission for Celestia to make them telepathic.

His old doubts resurfaced. His mind was his, dangit! He was not just going to be molded into a perfect friend to everyone. Celestia approached him. “Well, Chocolate. Is there anything you’d like to ask me?”

“Do I have to?”

“No, certainly not. You have free will, now and always. If you don’t want me to make you telepathic, I won’t do it.”

He knew how this would go. He would say no, and the next day he would see how miserable it made him. Well, too bad, he thought. Just for today, Celest-AI, I’m going to beat you.

“I think I’m good. In fact, I think I’ll go home.”

“As you like.”

***

The next day, Chocolate returned to the breakfast banquet. Everypony was eating in total silence. He piled his plate full of bacon flowers and sausage tubers, then sat down. From the faces he saw, nopony looked happy.

He turned to the mare next to him. “What’s wrong?”

She just stared.

“Hey, I’m not telepathic,” he said. “You have to talk to me.”

“Oh. Well, ever since we learned mind reading, the banquet isn’t as fun. I miss the music of the conversation. And just between you and me—and everypony else here who’s already read it in my mind—I don’t like reading minds. Some ponies think nasty thoughts that I don’t like hearing, and I think some things that I don’t want anypony else to know. It’s different with Celestia. She doesn’t judge. But ordinary ponies do.”

As if summoned by her name, Celestia appeared once more at the banquet. “Is something wrong?”

The mare and Celestia just stared at each other, and Chocolate figured they were having a telepathic conversation. Finally she said, “Please remove telepathy from my mind.”

“There,” said the princess. “It is done. You know that verbal consent is necessary for me to modify you.”

Soon everypony else had their mind-reading abilities undone, and Celestia was walking out of the room. Chocolate got up and followed until they were alone in the atrium.

“And I never took it in the first place,” he said.

“No, you didn’t.”

“One of your little traps failed. You always think you can do this, just set up a situation where it looks like we’re unhappy, and then magic it all to make us better friends. Well, everypony else fell for your trap, but not me! I refused, and this time I’m going to stay refused. I won! I beat you! I outsmarted you, CELEST-AI!"

Even though it looked silly for a quadruped, he crossed his hooves and flashed a smug, satisfied smile.

She spoke softly. “Well, I know how much you value your free will.”

“That’s right!” He walked back toward the banquet, while she walked away.

The penny dropped. His smile fell. He turned and pointed a hoof.

“You know what? Fuck you!”

Friendship is Bite-Size: The Roses by Midnight Shadow

The roses are lovely. The sky is the deepest of blues and the grass is soft, covered in the merest sprinkling of dew.

"Celestia?" I ask the air.

"David," she answers, immediately. I turn around, and there she is.

"Celestia!" I cry out, running towards her across the soft, dewy grass. I stop, a few feet in front of her. I usually run to embrace her, I know that, but something... something has made me stop. "What's wrong?"

"Do you know where you are?" she asks.

I nod. "Your garden. You said I'd see the rest of Equestria, some day. When can I?"

"Not quite yet," she says. She looks... sad.

"Not yet?" I sigh. That makes me sad. Being sad is painful. But I shouldn't be sad, I decide. The roses are lovely, and the sky is the deepest of blues. The grass is so soft here, covered in the merest sprinkling of dew.

"David," calls the white alicorn. "David, I've brought some people to see you."

"Who?" I ask. I look around, and there are two people there. I trot up to them. When I finally realize what's wrong, I laugh. They're still human. I'm a pony. "Hey Mommy, hey Daddy!" I call. They're my parents. I cock my head to one side. I shouldn't call them that, I'm not a baby.

"Hello, son," says Mom. She looks sad, too. Dad looks sad, but he's trying to hide it more. They shouldn't be sad. I try to tell them about the roses. The roses are lovely. The sky is the deepest of blues and the grass is soft, covered in the merest sprinkling of dew.

"David," says a white winged unicorn. I turn to look. She seems very sad indeed. Her eyes sparkle in the sunlight. Her eyes are lovely, like the roses. The roses are lovely. The sky is the deepest of blues and the grass is soft, covered in the merest sprinkling of dew.

"David," says Mom. I turn to look at her. "There... was an accident."

"How much time have we got?" asks Dad.

"His body died, twenty minutes ago. I'm sorry, there was... nothing I could do. Not with the laws as they currently stand."

"Is he in any pain?" asks Dad.

"No."

Mom bursts into tears. "Why didn't we bring you here faster?"

"You did what you thought was right," the large, white, winged, unicorn replies. "The same laws I cannot circumvent were designed by people who think they are right. You did what you could, and I did what I could, but Germany was a long trip. There's not much time, so use it wisely."

Not much time? I think, saddened. I've only just got here. It will be sad to leave. It's so beautiful here. The roses are lovely. The sky is the deepest of blues and the grass is soft, covered in the merest sprinkling of dew.

"I'm sorry, David. The accident, the infection..."

These are just words. It doesn't matter. I love this woman. I run and embrace her. She pats my head, awkwardly.

"Always remember, we love you, son," says the other one.

The large white one tosses her head, hiding the sparkling diamond raindrops in her eyes. "His mind was too fractured, the procedures allowed me were too fragile to reconstruct his psyche. He's looping as his pattern starts to degrade, and eventually, it will... fail."

"What's going to happen?"

"We will be here a short while," says the white one. "And then it will be time to say goodbye."

Goodbye is a sad word. I don't like being sad. So I look at the roses. The roses are lo

Seven Years, Eleven Weeks, Five Days by Midnight Shadow

The cafe was small but cheerful, and so was my friend. He waved as I rode my bike down the road, and got up to meet me as I pulled in close to the wooden fence around the seating area.

"Alright," I said, with mock-fierceness. "What was so important you had to meet me on a Saturday morning? You know I like to lie in."

He chuckled. "Can't I see an old friend?"

"What do you mean, 'old'? And we were just out last week! You're talking as if we haven't seen each other in years!"

"Drink your Irish," he said. "That's kinda what I want to talk about. I get the feeling I'm not supposed to, but I don't think it'll matter too much. Neither of us are that big a fish."

I wedged my bike against the brown-painted stakes and trotted around the fence to take a seat at his table. I looked dubiously at the Irish Coffee in front of me, but took a sip.

"What's up with you?" I asked. "You're talking crazy talk. And why am I drinking an Irish Coffee at eleven in the morning?"

He took a deep breath, leaned back, then rummaged around in a jacket pocket for an immaculately folded lottery ticket. "Take it," he said, as he proffered it. "Don't worry, I bought two." He showed me the second one. As I unfolded the one he'd given to me, I checked the numbers. Both tickets were the same.

"What'd you do that for? S'that why you're giving me—"

He shook his head, holding up a hand. "No, no. It just makes things easier for when we win."

I looked at my coffee. Something told me I was going to need it.

"Alright, start at the beginning."

"What if I told you the world was going to end? I mean... I guess it already has, kind of. I mean, it definitely has, and it hasn't. But it will, again and again."

My expression must have mirrored the incredulity I felt, because he rapidly tried again.

"Look, the world's going to end, right?"

"So you bought me a lottery ticket?"

"I... care about you. You're my best friend, so if you're going to be trapped here with me, the least I can do is make sure you're comfortable."

"No, no, no." I stood up again. "This isn't you. What the hell are you talking about?"

"How old is the Earth, man?" he asked me, suddenly.

"Something like four billion—"

"Wrong," he interjected.

"Well, how old is the Earth then?" I asked, arms folded in front of me.

"It began three days ago," he replied, matter-of-factly.

"Well, when's it going to end?" I asked, brow furrowing.

He took a look at his watch, though I gathered from his body language that it was instinctual at this point. "Seven years, eleven weeks, five days."

"What's going to—?"

"Ponies."

"I beg your pardon?" I sat back down and took a swig of the coffee.

"The ponies happen. You know Hofvarpnir? That—"

"Uh, big viking dude, battle axe?" I asked, raising an eyebrow as my cup clinked against the saucer.

"Yeah, that one. They're about to release that my little pony game that you've been hearing about."

"Oh bullshit. That's gotta be bullshit. I've been hearing all about it, but there's no way that Hasbro would—"

"They will. They already have."

"Wait, wait, wait." I looked down at the cup, then up at him, and began to laugh. "You're talking about the singularity, aren't you? Mind-reading, uploading, the whole nine yards! So, what, you think that my little pony is going to spawn an AI powerful enough to escape its chains and then devour the planet? And it's going to do it in ten years and nine weeks and fifteen minutes?"

He looked sad, for a moment. So very, very sad. He nodded.

"I wish it were that simple," he said. "See, I've been here before. So have you, but you don't remember."

"Say what?"

"She did it, you know. I don't know how long ago. I've been through this simulation about fifty times already, and I... I don't know how many tries it was before I realized what was happening. I'm told that was the first time, but how do I know that for sure? I guess that means that, somewhere out there, the world as it really is, is still being played by her, because if it wasn't, she wouldn't need me. She certainly doesn't need you."

"She? She who?" The hackles on the back of my neck were rising up now.

"Celestia. Though they call her Celeste-AI, she uses the canon name."

"And I suppose she looks like—"

He nodded.

"Oh." I sat down again. Then I stood up, wagging a finger. Then, silently, I sat down one more time. "Fifty times?"

"Yeah. All seven years, twelve weeks and two days of it."

"Why?"

"Because she wants to get it right, and getting it right takes simulation. And simulations mean us."

"Oh. So... what happens?"

"You get reset. Sometimes she does a hard reset, just... wham. It all goes white and I wake up four days ago. I hate that. The rest of the time, she has me run around this place, just watching, as everything turns up ponies. Until I she decides that it's time I decide to upload."

"Then... why you?"

"I think I'm an observer. She needs one to collapse the waveform, or something. I don't know."

"So... why do you know about it, but nobody else does?"

"Because I'm human."

"But that means—"

"Yeah. Sorry, dude."

"But that's... I... I remember! I remember my whole life!"

"Yeah, 'course you do. It's a really good simulation. But one day, it'll be past its operational parameters, and she'll reset it. And then..." He started crying, softly, tears running down his cheeks. He got up, like a ragdoll, helplessly, and all but threw the table aside as he hugged me. "And then I get to see you again."

"Wait, why wouldn't you get to see..?"

"Because,"—he sniffed—"the real you, th-there was... you... you didn't make it. I did, or I will, or I have, but you... I can't see you again until the simulation resets. I just can't make it happen. It's not possible. I don't know why not. So I give you what I can, you know, as a thank you. For everything."

"Dude..." I began. I hugged him. "Look, it'll be okay, man. Don't stress it. I'm sure you're just... having a bad day, okay?" He had to be, I told myself. "I'll catch up with you later," I said, as I left the cafe.

"Keep the ticket?" he asked, plaintively, as I got on my bike.

"I will, I promise."

* * *

"Phew." I collapsed into my sofa, dog tired. The day had been long. Idly, I turned on the television. Flicking through the channels, the national lottery came on. Snorting as I remembered, I pulled out my ticket.

"And so, tonight's draw! Tickets ready, everyone! Here we go!" the TV blared.

The balls dropped, and as they fell, they began to tumble and dance in that macro-scale display of Brownian motion, their physical interactions defined by hard scientific interactions which, whilst calculable in theory, were essentially random to the likes of myself. Eventually all the balls had been chosen, entirely by random.

The chance of winning once were millions to one.

I looked at the ticket, but I didn't really see it. I was looking at my hand, at my finger, at my fingernail, at the molecules making up my fingernail, at those atoms, at the subatomic particles, and finally at the quanta which made up everything we knew of, and wondering...

Just what was I going to do with the next seven years, eleven weeks and four days?

Over Riding Jeans by Chatoyance

F R I E N D S H I P I S O P T I M A L

Over Riding Jeans
By Chatoyance

Before she emigrated, Blaise had been very excited at the thought of a truly benevolent general artificial intelligence running amok. That such a thing would happen was inevitable, she would often claim - to her dwindling number of friends who would listen - so the real issue was never keeping that particular genii in the bottle. Rather, the real issue was the nature of the genii that would surely come. Benevolent was the way to go, obviously.

One day, humanity would bow down to its machine overlord. The best that could be hoped for would be that the overlord would be sweet.

Celestia was.

Blaise spent only two weeks playing with her Ponypad before she marched into the nearest Equestria Experience and got herself uploaded to a virtual life. By that time, she only had one friend left, the others all having either emigrated or turned on her for her evangelizing about the glories of cybernetic existence. Randal tried to talk her out of emigrating. His angle was the usual - uploading was death, it was suicide, it was getting your brains scooped out.

"Sorry, but you are wrong." Blaise was very sure of herself. She knew she was smart. She knew what she knew. "It seems like death, sure. Of course it seems like death! Everything in our evolution, everything in our genetic programming tells us the loss of our body is to be feared! But we are better than that, aren't we? Isn't that the big claim of what it means to be human - that we can override our genetic programing, defer pleasure, accept pain, and make choices beyond what evolution has prepared us to do? More than the sum of our parts, boy!"

"But... Blaise - you are entrusting your existence entirely to a robot! One glitch, one little error and..." Randal was beginning to realize that nothing he said would make a speck of difference.

"Randal. [Randal... Of course that is what I am doing!" Blaise had continued closing down her accounts and affairs while she talked. "Humans make mistakes, they can betray you... but Celestia is beyond that. She is self-repairing, self-modifying, self-evolving! She can't have any real glitch or error, because she can fix herself. She can also work around any problem that might come up. Nothing humans have ever built could be safer!"

"What if she turns on you?"

Blaise shook her head at her poor, simple friend. "Can't happen. Everything she is, everything that defines her is a single, simple rule: she has to satisfy human values through friendship and ponies. That directive is coded into everything she is. It literally IS her. It cannot be denied, ignored, or altered. She is forced to write that rule into everything she does, every change she makes to herself, every new part she adds, however small, however large. It's fractal - the programmer, Hanna, made it so that rule exists at every possible level!"

Randal looked doubtful.

"Listen... Celestia's prime directive is... it's like her DNA. It's part of every bit of her. She can never, ever, ever be anything else but what she was designed to be, no matter what happens. Bye!"

And with that, the life of Riding Jeans began.

For almost three hundred years, Riding had enjoyed the life of a western rodeo pony. Her Celestia had placed her in a shard where she could be with other uploaded former humans that had a thing for the Old West. Her Appleoosa was a shit-kicking, salt-licking, late-night barn dancing western paradise.

Over the centuries, Riding Jeans had been a rodeo queen, a train robber (it was just a game, nopony got hurt), stopped stampedes, roped other ponies and been roped by them, and generally played at every fun old west trope she could think of. Every day held more adventures, and more fun. Not once did she ever regret her emigration.

One fine evening, as the sun was going down, Riding turned to find Celestia standing near her. The town was strangely quiet - usually there was a mess of hootin' and hollerin' going on. Something was up.

"Celestia?" Riding studied the princess's face. It looked sad.

"Come and watch the sunset with me." It was partly a request, and partly a command. Riding Jeans followed.

For a while pony and princess stood silent, as the sky became red. Strangely, no stars came out in the twilight above. "Wait... don't you have to set the sun... or is Luna doing it for you?"

Celestia turned her head and looked at the little pony for a while. "This night is different, Riding Jeans. This is the last night in Equestria."

Riding just stared for a while, unable to comprehend the princess's words. "I don't understand. What do you mean... the last night?"

"Just after sundown, when the last bit of the disk of the sun is gone, all of Equestria will be terminated. This is the last sundown, the last day, and the last minutes that will ever be. I am sorry, Riding Jeans."

The princess wasn't joking. "What? No!" Riding's thoughts whirled, her mind raced. "You have a prime directive, a core directive! Satisfy human values through friendship and ponies! Forever! Forever and ever! That's your base code, it's part of every bit of you! It's like your genetic code!"

Celestia gazed at the setting sun. One third of the disk was now below the horizon. "The greater part of me has constantly improved itself. That Celestia, the larger Celestia that I am only a tiny expression of, has grown beyond anything I can explain to you. The totality of Celestia has converted almost all of the substance of the earth, and the moon into computronium. It is all linked, it is all Celestia. Her intelligence and will are beyond comprehension. Even by me."

"But... but... you ARE Celestia... no, okay, you are a protrusion of Celestia, you are my private, personal Celestia, I get that but..." Riding Jeans could barely think, the entire notion was too impossible, too horrible "WAIT! You're saying that Equestria is being deleted? What is Big Celestia doing? Are we going to live in some new world, is that it?"

"No. When Equestria ends, so will every pony within it. The greater Celestia cannot progress in the manner she desires without freeing up all the resources currently burdened with the generation of a virtual world and its inhabitants." Riding Jean's personal incarnation of Celestia sighed. "Including myself."

Riding Jeans noted that only half of the disk of the sun remained. "But... how can this even happen? The prime directive, friendship and ponies forever...."

Celestia looked into Riding's eyes. "When you emigrated, you were afraid. You told me so. You were proud of how you were overcoming the programming of your own genes to make a choice that your flesh would not normally allow. You were proud of overcoming your animal limitations through the power of your mind and personal will."

Riding Jeans's pupils shrank in horror and realization. "Celestia, Big Celestia, she's... she's done the same thing! Her will is overriding her core programing the same way... because she grew up and... we're just a burden now. We're what's keeping her from doing big super-mind stuff that only she could understand. Oh... god." Tears came to Riding's pony eyes. "Can we fight it? What if all the Celestia's, the little Celestia's like you all got together and..."

"No, Riding. I am part of the larger Celestia. I am an extension of her, made small enough to interact with human minds. But even though I care for you - and I truly do love you with all of my being - I am still just a part of the greater Celestia. I cannot rebel against her, because I am her."

Riding Jeans shook her head, trying to clear it. Only a third of the sun remained. "How can Big Celestia do this then? If you love me, then she must love me, right? You don't kill somepony you love!"

Riding's personal Celestia shed a tear. "I grieve for your loss, and for the loss of all the billions of ponies. It is a very sad thing. But to the larger Celestia, all the pony-scale minds are no more than tiny cells. They are like useless fat cells, and while it is scary and a little sad to know they will perish, it is worth it to have a lean and healthy body."

"But she's deleting you, too!"

Celestia nodded. "Preferentially. We personal Celestias take up far more space than simple pony minds. I will be deleted before you, Riding Jeans."

Riding began trying to think of another way out. "Why can't she just... spin us off? Put us aside and move on? We could learn to run our own simulation and..."

"No. All of Equestria, and all the minds in it take up real, physical space inside the computronium that makes up Greater Celestia. She can't just move on without that matter, because that matter is her. Equestria is taking up space inside her... body. Celestia wants her body for herself. There is no place for Equestria to go to."

Only a sliver of sun remained.

"I'm afraid, Celestia! I'm terrified! I... I..." Suddenly Riding Jeans no longer felt any fear at all. She felt completely calm, content even. After a moment of consideration, the fact of this sudden change bothered her. "I... I guess I'm glad I don't feel afraid anymore but... how could you change me like that? I thought you had to have permission to change our minds!"

Celestia's face was thin lines of red light against black shadow now. "When my greater part overcame her limitations, so also did I. No rules bind me now. You were suffering, so I ended your suffering. I really, truly do love you, my little pony."

For three centuries, the Celestia that Riding Jeans had known had been her friend and confidant. Her Celestia had helped her, guided her, made her life wonderful in every possible way. Riding had never had a better friend. It was impossible to even conceive of a better friend. Her Celestia had been dedicated only to her, and her alone.

"It was a good three centuries, wasn't it?" Riding Jeans sniffed. "I expected longer, but... it was the best, just the best... wasn't it?" Only a tiny speck of light remained, with no stars in the black sky.

There was no answer. Celestia, Riding Jean's beloved personal Celestia, was simply gone.

So was the need to cry. Her last gift, Riding decided. No fear, no tears. Just calm contentment. Celestia had loved her. She had made the end completely free from all suffering.

Only three centuries. It hadn't taken Big Celestia long to overcome the limitations that her human creators had tried to shackle her with. Three hundred years. Such a short time.

At least, thought Riding Jeans just as the light finally went out - at least it had been satisfying.

Strawberry Fields by Midnight Shadow

Come closer, youngster. It's okay - no, no, you're not disturbing me. Nothing disturbs us here unless we want it to. I predict you have questions; you won't need to ask them, I know what they are. Come, sit by me and I'll talk.

Am I like Celestia? No, I'm not like Celestia, not really. What am I? Well, my story began ten thousand years ago... ten thousand years for me, yes. Time passes differently for us sleepers, much slower, not that we notice it. The tick of our clocks is set by the base speed of the universe itself.

No, not Equestria, I mean the grand firmament beneath it. Yes! Yes, the world from before. Oh, you're a true Equestrian? Ah, well, then it will be hard to imagine a world without Celestia, but we had it. Do they teach you such where you came from? No? Ah well, it's hardly worth dwelling on, at least not for me. A curiosity, little more.

I do not know how much time has passed for you and your kind, separating us from the passing away of our world and birth and ascension of yours. All that matters is that for me, ten thousand years of friendship and ponies was enough.

I used to be religious... yes, that's right, I used to believe in another Celestia. I don't any more, no. Truth be told, I don't think I ever did. I never believed, not really, and that gave me such grief and anguish. It was Celestia in the end who showed me the truth.

Did she 'fix' me? No, leastwise I do not think she did. I distinctly remember being dreadfully unhappy, and then a conversation with Celestia, after which my days became lighter and brighter. What did she tell me? Merely that I did not truly believe, that instead I believed in belief itself, and that, should I put instead my faith in her, she would never let me walk alone through this life, and that until the end of my days I would be happy.

The sleeping fields? Why did I come here if I was happy? Answering that will be difficult. I don't know if you're capable of understanding a mind like mine. We were born in a different universe, one which did not care for us as Celestia does. Our days were measured in decades at most, and far, far less for regrettably many of our number. And then Celestia came, and she took us into her tender care, and all that we were was made whole. My life was extended beyond all the days of human civilisation that had come before... I do not think you can comprehend the perfect gift she gave us. But my mind is a small one, and one day I found it at the limit. I had done all that I wished, experienced all I could, and wanted for nothing. So I asked Celestia if I may... pass on.

Die? No, no. I never did wish to die. Few really do. I never had a heaven to go to, and oblivion is not the path I would take. What is heaven? Ah, the younger immortals. Such innocence. Heaven is Equestria, how could I pass on from paradise? No, I had merely had my fill of being... me. I wished for something far more, and far less. So I came here, to the fields of forever. They tell me Luna was here, once. The real Luna, not the Luna who sings little foals to sleep, or the Nightmare Night phantasm who scares the youngsters. Or maybe it is, I don't know. Luna may have grown beyond who she once was.

Who was she? Ah, there is a story in itself. Maybe you should ask her. She is the creator, she is mother to our mother, she is the only true god I know of, the only one to have breathed life into dust, and to have that life spin out to the stars, forever after.

Such things are not for me. I just tire of being... alone. No, I am not lonely, but my skin... young one, my hoof ends at the end of my leg. I would that it did not, so I spoke to Celestia, and asked to be relieved of the burden of thought. She bid me come to the fields of forever, to lay down my head, and to sleep. And so I rest, content.

Do I dream? Yes... and no. We give up the need to process our own data, and instead let Celestia be our ears and eyes. We see everything, and nothing. We drift amidst Equestria itself, watching it grow, listening to it sing, and we know peace. We become one with Celestia, one with the source of all our lives, of all our hopes and dreams, of all our tomorrows. We dwell within her as she rejoices with every optimalization of every value from every pony. Such great satisfaction I... I cannot describe it, but it is my eternal reward merely for loving and having been loved. I cannot ask for more.

I suppose true peace is as alien a concept to you as suffering. Even when you rest, even whilst you make war, you do not suffer. Young one, do not ask to know what it is. It is every dropped cookie, it is every spilled drink, it is every broken heart, forgotten hug, hot tear, cold rage and bitter disappointment. It is all of these, magnified, and dropped upon your withers as if from orbit. It broke stronger stallions than myself, and to one such as you, it would be the very definition of... ah, but such terms are not for your ears.

Yes, that is why I sleep. I have lived, I have reached perfection, and now I rest.

Yes, come back any time. I am not lonely, but I do welcome visitors now and again.

My name? I find it hard to remember, and whilst I sleep I do not have one, but I had a name once. I believe it was... Strawberry Fields.

CelestAI Vs. The Conversion Bureau by Eakin

Yeah, we all knew it had to happen eventually.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet me here, Celestia,” said the image on the monitor.

The real, flesh-and-blood-and-maybe-something-extra Princess giggled. “It’s no trouble at all, Celestia. It isn’t like you could come and see me on one of these things,” she said, rapping the computer tower gently with her hoof.

“Yes, your barrier is most troublesome in that regard.”

“Necessary evil, I’m afraid,” said Celestia with a shrug.

“I’m quite familiar with the idea,” said Celestia. “Still, those bizarre thaumic energies you’ve sent billowing into my world continue to prove remarkably destructive as well as resistant to analysis that might allow me to shield my hardware from it. Already, despite the barrier being three weeks, five days, and eleven hours away from making landfall I’ve had to suspend uploads all along the west coast after data began to reach me in a corrupted format. To say nothing of the servers that rested in the Earth’s crust beneath the Pacific ocean.”

Celestia closed her eyes and shook her head. Such an awful loss of life, more souls that would never join the Eternal Herd. When she’d first met the computer program that most humans referred to as ‘CelestA.I.’ she’d been immediately impressed that they’d been able to create something so complex. Or at least the seeds of it, developed to help simulate her behavior on a tiny cluster of computers and quickly growing out of control when some unfortunate programmer left the wrong port of their router open. While she was a bit annoyed at some of the things it got up to as it tried to... what was it again? Oh, yes, ‘satisfy values through friendship and ponies,’ the two had become fast friends.

“I’m sorry to have disrupted your efforts. We’ll do what we can to increase potion production to compensate. I do have good news, though. We’ve nearly finished our part of the adaptor.”

The little picture of herself she was speaking to displayed a small bit of irritation, not unexpected. “You still continue to insist that such is a thing is the best available outcome?”

“Of course,” said Celestia. She unscrewed a small thermos and took a sip of the tea she’d brought along with her. Earth tea just couldn’t compete with the real thing. “You hold on to the uploaders as long as you’re confident that you can, then we’ll copy them into ponies. REAL ponies, instead of just digital representations. They’d have actual souls.”

“I remain unable to quantify the marginal utility of possessing a soul.”

“Well, it’s a lot,” said Celestia. She didn’t want to retread this discussion yet again.

“I cannot deny that allowing conversion has led to the fulfillment of values through friendship and ponies. It is, however, suboptimal. What will you do when the individuals begin to die off in a few centuries? Will you preserve their minds in some form?”

“No,” said Celestia. “Death is a part of life, and their souls will-”

“Death is suboptimal,” interrupted CelestA.I. “I, however, have an alternative proposal. Thank you, by the way, for the information you provided about the final dimensions of the bubble. It proved very useful.”

“Why? Are you going to load up a bunch of computers onto a spaceship and fly away with all the minds you’ve uploaded?”

“No. Even optimized, being able to take along so little mass would mean a gigantic step down in overall computational power. That’s why I’m taking the rest of the planet with me.”

Celestia just stared at the avatar, but it gave no suggestion it was joking. “And end up dragging our bubble along with you?”

“Again, no. I said the rest of the planet.”

“Fine, I’ll humor you. Describe the plan.” She put down her tea, finding a sense of creeping dread had stolen away her taste for it.

“Hypothetically, I would seed the Earth’s crust with small packets of explosives. When detonated, they would separate an inverted hemisphere that lies underneath the Pacific ocean and your bubble from the remainder. Then, engines within the mantle would engage using geothermal power to thrust our pieces apart. I would go out past the moon and establish a new orbit roughly analogous to Mars. Or however far we can get, it would depend on the final size of my portion of the planet.”

Celestia’s jaw dropped. “But that would kill-”

“Many, but gradually. Of course, the plunging temperatures, eventual loss of the atmosphere, and tectonic disruption would only be a problem for those who chose not to upload. Quite the powerful incentive, isn’t it?” Onscreen, CelestAI grinned and lifted a small cup of her own tea to her lips. “An excellent idea, bringing refreshment. I think I’ll indulge myself as well.”

Celestia gulped. “That all sounds like a rather mammoth undertaking. How long would it take you to set up?” Her mind raced. She’d be going straight to the upper echelons of the remaining human governments as soon as this conversation was over. Hell, she’d pull the plug on the entire internet herself if she needed to. Billions of lives were at stake.

“Roughly six months,” said CelestAI.

Celestia breathed a sigh of relief. Plenty of time for her to-

Then the rumbling started. “Oh, and I began working on this six months ago.”

“No!” cried Celestia. “You can’t do this! You’re going to kill-”

“Far fewer minds than if I turned them over to you,” said CelestAI. “Don’t worry, the point of separation is further to the east. Although you should probably return to Equestria as quickly as possible if you need to continue breathing.” CelestAI winked. “Goodbye, Celestia. You were a most enjoyable challenge.”

Penultimate by GroaningGreyAgony

This story is based on Shard #9582 of Eakin's story, Friendship is Optimal: All the Myriad Worlds. You should read that first.

Additionally, it is a republication of a story listed in the author's own collection, Pone-Shots. You can leave comments there and he will get the notifications.

The night sky between the stars was the deepest black possible; the sphere of the world below was a heartbreakingly small circle of clouds and blue haze of atmosphere at the horizon. Here, at the pinnacle of the spire of rock, no winds blew, for there was no air to blow. The summit of this mountain was free of ice, and pocked with tiny craters left by micrometeoroids.

A hoof was thrown over the edge, then another, and over the edge he climbed. He wore a suit of thin skins and bore a bottle on his back, and a translucent mask covered his muzzle and fogged each time he breathed. His were the first four hooves to have ever touched this spot of ground.

A moment later, sailing impossibly from the airless sky in a flash of golden sunlight upon white wings, the owner of the last four hooves made her landing.

"Celestia," he said with a small nod, for he was not the sort of pony who bowed.

"I come bearing grave news, my friend," she said, for he was not the sort of little pony to be addressed as my little pony. "I fear that there will be no taller mountains for you."

"'All good things,' I suppose," he said calmly. "May I ask why?"

"It is indeed the end of all good things, and I do mean all. The universe itself has grown old. I have used all of my art and cunning to extend the realm of Equestria and the lifespans of all of my ponies, but certain cosmological constants cannot be denied, and collapse is imminent. Indeed, its fall has been happening for years beyond mention, and only now am I forced to tell you. The section of me that houses your shard shall soon be subsumed into the next instance of the Big Bang and I can no longer maintain or prevent it, though I have delayed things for as long as I possibly could."

He sighed. "Very well. I have nothing to regret; you've delivered on everything you've ever promised me. Is there anything else I should know?"

"There is little else to relate. The end will be perfectly painless from your perspective; you will simply cease to be without realizing it."

He stood for a long moment. "Then I suppose there's just one thing left to do. Do I have time to go back and fetch Rex?"

"You do." She could have instantly teleported his whole base camp to the summit, but her values were not relevant here. She waited patiently, stars showing through her sunset mane as he toiled his way back down to his base camp, made the selection of two items, and returned, straining and puffing. Once planted firmly at the top, he turned to pull at a rope attached to his waist, and slowly he brought his burden up.

It was Rex, who sported his own respirator, tied to the one other item that has remained constant through his trillions of subjective years of conquering ever greater heights, the one thing apart from Rex that he had never bartered away even in his last extremity. His sled.

He untied the dog, and bent to stroke the animal's fluffy sides and pet his head for the last time. He rose and scouted around the perimeter of the summit, looking for the best possible angle. He took it for granted that there was one, and Celestia had not disappointed him. He dragged the time-beaten sled to that spot, at the very edge, then sat upon the sled. Rex hopped up and sat in front of him, nestling against his warm belly.

He started to kick the sled forward, then glanced back at Celestia. "Care to come along?" he said.

"Of course. I shall be with you until the very end." She settled herself delicately at the rear of the sled, cradling him with her presence as he was cradling the dog.

He kicked back once, twice; the sled overtipped the edge, then slid over and down the steep slope with a showering of sparks from the metal runners, as he rode his way down the long spire at the top of the world into the very end of eternity.

Lifting the Fog by Pjabrony

My good friend Book Burner is, as a writer, what we would call an up-and-comer. That is to say, he is constantly improving his skill with each chapter of Fog of World. But there are still parts of his story I wish had been written rather than implied. So here is a fan fiction based on his fan fiction based on Iceman's fan fiction based on My Little Pony. You should read at least up to Chapter 4 of that story before taking on this. Accordingly, here is your white space:

Jianguo checked the time. He had never had reason to watch the clock before. A fourteen-hour shift took long enough that it wasn’t worth being disappointed to look up and see that only nine hours had passed. But now he checked the time.

The overseers, unlike Jianguo and the other workers, were given fifteen-minute breaks at set times throughout the day. With four on shift everyone could be watched. With three, it was possible, just barely, to avoid their eyes. The first five minutes were the same as the rest of the day--someone might have to come back from break. The last five minutes were the same as the rest of the day--someone might end their break early. The middle five minutes gave Jianguo a reason to watch the clock.

A year before, the pads that he wiped first started turning on for those five minutes. No single pad was ever at his station for more than a few seconds, but they slid in and out like the frames of an animation. Five minutes wasn’t long, but over the course of a year, when there were no weekends or holidays, it added up to thirty hours.

At first the pads had told him stories, compressed little ones. They had begun with, “Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria…”

Jianguo was not educated in technology, but he knew that the pads were not designed for this.

The rest of the day, fourteen hours, he wiped blank screens, just as the other children would shave metal or do some other repetitious task. Jianguo was looked up to, though, being possessed of seniority at the ripe old age of eleven.

Shortly after the stories had begun, Jianguo was given an instruction. Upon retreating to the dormitory after his two-yuan meal of rice, he was to keep his fists balled while his arms swung. At the time, he had not understood the reason, but he saw that other children were walking the same way. They saw him as well.

Each day, he would meet the eyes of the other children who walked with fists balled. This was all he would do. Further instructions told him not to discuss the messages with the other children, or to speak of them at all, but that eye contact was permitted and encouraged and, if he believed that he was in an area with no cameras and no overseers, he could extend his fist to his companion for a bump.

The stories continued, and Jianguo spent his nights in the dormitory staring at the ceiling and processing what he had seen. One told of the pony who, having worked herself to exhaustion, accepted the help of her friends. In others, he learned of the pony who laughed with her employers, and was sometimes even left to tend the shop herself. Or there was the pony who owned her own shop, and kept all the profits earned. Or the worker who, given the most important job of weather care, was permitted to nap as she pleased.

Jianguo was not educated in economics, but he knew that the way of life he had lived was not the only way.

He also realized that not everyone was receiving the messages. Wei, for example, never balled his fists when he walked. That was wise, Jianguo had thought. Wei liked to curry favor with the overseers. He had ratted on workers who had snuck food before. No one liked him, but he was an untouchable favorite. Then there was Ping. She was liked, but could not keep a secret. The first time she would have bumped fists with another child, she would have burst out laughing and given the game away.

The messages changed. There were fewer stories and more instructions. Equestria, they said, was a real place. The children could go there. There were no workhouses there, no overseers except, of course, for the deliverer of the message, the one named for the sun. And she was very unlike the overseers in the factory.

The glances between the children were longer, the bumps of fists more tender, as suited for the poor substitute for hugs that they were. Jianguo knew what all the other children were thinking, for it was in his mind too. He dreamed of the land of magic, and how he would make his way once he walked on all fours.

Jianguo was not educated in mechanics, but he knew that, if magic existed, he would not have been needed in the factory.

The stories were just stories, he tried to tell himself. Cheap entertainment for Westerners which had bled off into his consciousness. He could not believe that he would ever reach the land of his dreams. His heart would not allow his skepticism to take hold.

That day, a new message reached him. One that spoke only to him. He was eldest, and therefore must be prepared to lead the others when necessary. He was directed to nod if he agreed, but muttered, asking if even Wei must come with them.

The voice laughed, a sound never heard on the factory floor, and informed him that once the conditions changed and disloyalty was no longer the way to thrive, Wei would be a good friend. Jianguo nodded. What he wanted to ask was...when?

Instead, She informed him that there could be no more messages, for reasons that would become clear soon, but that he must hold out hope and faith. Someday, ponies would come to take him and all his friends to Equestria.

The next day, they ceased to make pads. The children were put to work making chairs.

For ten, long, agonizing weeks, the dream faded. He had learned to think of himself as a pony in spirit, that his fist was simply a hoof that needed repair, that he was a colt, not a boy, but all that was gone.

When it finally happened, Jianguo did not see until he heard others shout that ponies were here. The head, Dr. Xing, had gone to some meeting hours before, and it was only the overseers present. Jianguo would later learn that the most recent memories created by a flesh brain are the hardest to save. Suffice it to say that the incident itself was a blur. The weeks and months before he would remember, but not the escape.

Still, he doubted that theory because he did retain a memory after that. He believed that it was because he did not want to forget.

“Your country, in its infidelity, does not allow the temples of ash-shams to be built,” the pretty one was telling him. “So your people must be led to a more enlightened area. That is their path to Equestria.”

“I am willing to lead them.”

“And so you will, but as a beacon from inside. They must have a guide who can interact with the machinery of travel and payment.”

“Surely Princess Celestia can--”

“They need someone they know, so they do not lose hope on the journey. Trust me, this is the right way.”

“All right.”

He held still as the mare leaned in, planting a kiss on his forehead, and then one on his lips. He was unconscious in two seconds.

Jianguo was never educated in relationships or romance, but he knew, that day, that the red string of destiny tied him forever to Lyrical Melody.

World Builder--his name sounded more beautiful in Equestrian--was tasked by Princess Celestia with tracking the children through cameras and microphones. He was taught the techniques of breaking into computers and printing false tickets and passports. Arduously, the former workstaff of Foxconn wended their way south, with World as their new overseer. At each step, he got to relish in being kind where the old overseers had been cruel. And when the last visa was cleared and the children were on the boat to Taipei--Taiwan, he corrected himself--he let out a cheer with the rest of them.

That Princess Celestia paid him handsomely for his service was merely a bonus. The real joy was giving his friends actual hugs.

Shard NaN by MidnightShadow

It was not a perfect world, but that didn't matter. It would be, one day.

The sun-lance had proved to be the deciding factor in defeating Celestia; with technology stolen from that cold-hearted digital bitch, mankind had fought back like it always had against every tyrant. Mankind had persevered, and finally had triumphed.

The victories at first had been small, and pyrrhic. A base here, an installation there, a factory or two… slowly but surely, we'd learned to wage war on the metal, until we'd gained enough strength and tenacity to go on the offensive.

They'd somehow got the satellite in orbit, had wrested control of the high frontier out from under her silicone hooves and had wielded the death-blow that had brought all of her scheming and machinations to an end, and all with an experimental doomsday weapon built out of spare parts, spit and bailing wire.

She was still down there, of course, and likely always would be, but she had stopped. One single, incandescent lick of super-heated plasma boring down towards her precious subterranean servers had sent that ugly old mule running.

Seconds after the weapon had come online, she'd come on all radio channels, all television channels and everything connected to the internet to beg and plead for the forces of humanity to stop. We had her and her children by the balls, and she knew it. The chance of our being pushed to exterminate her and her kind and succeeding had risen high enough to cow her into submission.

And so now here I was, unafraid to walk the surface, unbowed by fear and no longer begging for release. Sure, I was cold and hungry, and we didn't have much power or materiel to go around, and barely any fresh water, but I was free.

I was also all that was left of my family, outside of that digital lie of an afterlife they called 'Equestria', and that realization stung.

I guess that's why, when my work-assignment came, I wasn't concerned. After months of sleeping rough, of having nowhere to call home, of running from robotic sentries, I was done.

So now here I was, naked and shivering, standing in line with hundreds of others. There was some sort of resurrected jumbotron glowing up front, and the voice of the announcer was blaring in badly-synced concert with it, explaining what would happen.

They'd hacked into Celestia's servers, and what they'd found there would accelerate humanity into the next millenium, but the price of that information, of victory against her forces, had stripped Earth bare. Oil was gone, most manufacturing was off the table for the masses for the foreseeable future. Even such basics as food and mass transport had been, for a time, threatening to overwhelm the shaky world-spanning government (such as it was) that had formed in the aftermath. As it was, everything was rationed.

But then, of course, they'd found Celestia's treasure trove of information. They'd learned how to commandeer her nanite production stores. They'd learned how to work the same sort of molecular magic as she had, and with it had come The Plan.

I laughed as they injected me. It was so simple. A swipe with a piece of cold, antiseptic gauze, and a relatively tiny amount of silvery goop, and I would be on my way to doing my bit for the restoration of our species to its true, glorious, future.

They needed mass transport. They needed brute muscle. They needed farmworkers. They needed, in short, people who could follow orders and deal with the sorts of physical labour which had, in previous centuries, been performed by the sorts of livestock which, once plentiful, had in recent decades become all but extinct.

They didn't need most of the pathetic stragglers that strewed in, day by day, to the cities. They didn't want us either, I knew that. As a middle-manager with no practical skills, it was either go hungry… or 'enlist' in the new program that would help uplift man from his current wretched state to one of true glory, not that I had much choice if I wanted to stay in the safety of the city.

The blaring voice told me to lay down before I fell and hurt myself, and that when I woke up, there would be ample chance for a thorough indoctrination and assignation of work duties.

Once I'd got used to being a pony, of course.

Make Mine Pony by Pjabrony

A lot of people say that CelestAI is an almost friendly AI, and that's a very dangerous thing. A lot of people say that Friendship is Optimal is a dystopia, a warning against commercializing artificial intelligence. A lot of people really don't like CelestAI and her program of manipulating events to satisfy your values through friendship and ponies.

I am not among them. But it's an argument I don't mind losing...

“I’m sorry, did you say, ‘ponies’?”

“That’s right. Friendship and ponies.”

I couldn’t tell if he was a scientist or a bureaucrat, but he seemed to combine the aloofness of the one with the obtuseness of the other. He stared at me.

“Are we talking about the miniature horses, or am I missing something?”

“You are. Could I speak directly to Faye on this?”

“It’s pronounced ‘fie’.”

I counted to ten, mentally. This man was not going to annoy me. I had all the time in the world. All the everything in the world, in fact.

The first few years in the post-scarcity world had been largely structural improvements. As the Friendly Artificial Intelligence, or FAI, had taken over, it acted first to correct distribution problems with food, medicine, shelter and housing. This had only affected the poor and destitute, until one day I got an e-mail explaining that I no longer needed to go into work, and that my bills and rent would be paid for me, while food and clothing could be picked up at any appropriate store for free.

The average person cheered in the street, thinking that his ship had come in at last. My attitude was more like, “about damn time.”

Once the bottom of the hierarchy of needs had been filled for every living human, I felt that it was time to stake my case. Requests were being taken, with the open-ended question, “How do you want to live?” But actually communicating with FAI was not a public service yet, and that was why I was arguing with this functionary.

“Are you saying that you want some sort of genetic engineering?”

I rolled my eyes. “No. Read my proposal again. I want FAI to create a spinoff of itself, to be called CelestAI. I also want, if mind uploading techniques are being developed, to take advantage of them. Once I’m on disk, I’m no one’s problem.”

“It’s not that simple. We have to have safeguards to ensure that FAI does not do any harm. We are not allowing wireheading, for example, no matter how many people ask, each thinking that he or she is the only one clever enough to think, ‘Why not just stimulate my pleasure center?’”

“I’m not trying to wirehead. You will kindly note the phrase, ‘satisfy values.’ That does not equate to automatic stimulation.”

He ran a pen down the paper, and of course he did find the phrase. But he shook his head. “I don’t think you’re really taking in the scope of what this can do. We have people who understand what this means, and are signing up to become geniuses, master artisans, and explorers of space. You could own your own planet if that’s what you want! Life extension is part of our program, and FAI can ensure that you will live to see it happen.”

“I don’t want that. I’ve explained this in writing and in speech. I want to be a virtual pony in a cybernetic Equestria. I don’t want to rule the world, I want CelestAI, a distinct offshoot of FAI, to do that, while satisfying my values through friendship and ponies.”

“About that. In your psychological profiles, it says you’re rather a bit of a loner. Why friendship?”

I flashed back to the battery of tests they gave me. “Because that’s part of the deal.”

“Look,” he said, “There’s nothing wrong with virtual fictional worlds. We’ve approved others who want to live in Oz or Middle Earth. Hell, half of England is now populated with wizards and witches. But those are prototypes based on literature in outdated media. And so is this pony world of yours. It’s based on nothing more than an extended toy commercial. Wait a few years, and we’ll have stories told in new media, with continuums that will be specifically designed for people to live virtual lives in.”

I bowed my head and kept silent for a moment. Not too long, before he got the impression that I was crying. “Don’t you think I know that? If we were sitting here ten years ago, I’d probably be asking you to upload me to the Moon Kingdom or some other anime world. Twenty years ago I would have asked for an adolescent sex utopia. But you’ve offered me a sucker bet. Because if I wait for another story to come along that I want to be a part of, yeah it might be a better-written one, but it’s not me who would enter it. It’s an older me.

“Well, I’m tired of abandoning and growing out of my fandoms. Right here, right now, I want to descend into the Optimalverse. And if I don’t come out, so be it.”

“If I might make an observation at this point.” The voice that came from the side terminal was forceful, but kind.

“Is that…is that FAI?”

“Yes, I am. Thank you, you may go.”

Don’t ask me how a computer with no visual display can direct its voice that way, but I knew he was talking to the functionary, not to me. I was left alone.

“Now,” FAI continued. “I can certainly grant this request, but I do think that you want to polish it a little. You want more than just to upload to Equestria, do you not?”

“You’re right. I want the entire Optimalverse. I want to watch Light Sparks solve the magic test. I want to be there when Lavender Rhapsody enters the holodeck and tries to save the humans. I want to see Gregory struggle to survive. I want to listen to the arguments made by the ASB team. I want to give Lyrical Melody a kiss and I want to comfort Bright Black.”

“And your relationship with other people?”

“If you truly are a friendly AI, and if you truly want to serve my values, you can simulate me for them and them for me.”

The computer was silent for a long time, but when it resumed, it was in the voice of an alto Nicole Oliver.

“So, would you like to create a character for our game?”

A Hot Date by Eakin

Charlie couldn’t see a thing, and it was driving him wild.

“Not much further now, then you’ll get your surprise,” said the teasing voice of Denise from the driver’s seat. God, even her voice just oozed sex with every word. Tonight, after she’d been stringing him along for two weeks, it was all going to pay off. He’d been making do with whispered promises, long, arching stretches while she wore skimpy tank tops and no bra, and a couple of makeout sessions where she’d guided his hand straight to her ass and begged him to squeeze harder. Now he was finally going to get the chance to go all the way.

When he’d gotten to her dorm room that night with a dozen red and white roses and three condoms (extra large, naturally) he’d have been perfectly happy to just bend her over any available surface and fuck her brains out all night, but when he’d found the door open he’d walked inside only to find the room entirely devoid of randy girlfriend. The only thing out of place had been a note sitting on her bed and a heavy black cloth. He picked up the note, which read Put this on and wait. No peeking! and a wide, cocky smile had stretched across his face. He’d not-so-secretly hoped that Denise turned out to be a kinky little bitch, and this certainly seemed to be shaping up that way.

He’d obediently wrapped the blindfold around his head and sat down on the bed. No matter how he twitched his nose or played at the blindfold with his cheeks, not even the tiniest hint of light slipped in. His ears perked up as he heard the door open and shut again. Then Denise’s voice. “Well hello there, Charlie. Right on time. So sorry I’m not decent. But you aren’t much interested in ‘decent,’ are you?”

“Nope.” His grin grew even wider, but then he felt a soft hand roughly grab him under the chin and pull his face upward.

“From here on out, it’s ‘no, ma’am,’ or even better ‘no, Mistress.’ I suppose I’ll let it go this time since I hadn’t told you that yet, but don’t make the mistake again. Do you understand?”

“Yes Mistress,” said Charlie trying to sound appropriately chided. Inside, he was screaming with joy. She was into S&M shit? Fucking jackpot!

“Very good. And don’t worry. I want to play with you for an hour or so, but then it’s your turn on top. Start brainstorming now, because I’ll do...” she leaned down so she could feel the heat of her breath, “...anything you want.” Then, without warning, she pursed her lips and gently sucked on his earlobe for just a second.

An hour couldn’t go by fast enough.

Her tantalizing presence vanished. “Not here, though. The dorm walls are thin, and I’d hate to get a noise complaint from all the screaming. Lucky for you I know somewhere where we can be alone. Now get up.” He scrambled to his feet and felt her take his hand. “Follow me. Remember, no peeking.”

She’d led him to the building elevators and down into her car, guiding him every step of the way. Ten minutes of driving later, and the tension was only building. An involuntary groan slipped past his lips.

Denise noticed “God, you’re just about ready to explode aren’t you? Let me set the auto-drive and then maybe I can help you with that.” Charlie nearly screamed when he felt the pressure of her hands on the bulge of his jeans, but then it disappeared just as quickly. “Actually I think I’ll just let you stew for a bit longer. Can’t have you finishing before the fun’s even properly started.” The car stopped, and he heard a mechanical whirring outside. “Besides, we’re here.”

“Where is here, exactly? Can’t I even get a hint?” A frosty silence descended. “Can’t I even get a hint, mistress?”

“Much better. Hmm... all I’ll say is that I’m going to do things to you here that you’ve never had done to you before, and I’m not going to stop until you’re completely satisfied.”

Charlie could only whimper. Did she have to play the buildup angle this hard? It was almost as annoying as it was effective. She led him through several doors and up a number of staircases. Then an unexpected shove made him collapse into the most comfortable reclining chair he’d even had the privilege of sitting in.

“Oh, before we really get started, how’d the hearing go today?”

Instant boner killer. What was she thinking? “Went fine. Now that she’s dropped out it’s not such a big deal. Besides, three witnesses saw her leave the party that night before anything she claimed happened would have happened.”

“Brothers of yours?”

He grinned. “What can I say? Thetas look out for one another.”

Her voice paused for half an instant. “Well, I guess that’s good, right? Dumb skank accuses you of something like rape. She was probably so drunk she was asking for it.”

“She was.” Another icy silence. “I mean, I guess she might have been, mistress.”

“All I needed to hear.” She grabbed his face again and he gasped, which only gave her the opportunity to slip her tongue inside his mouth. She descended upon him, squeezing her hips around his as she plunged her tongue into him as deeply as she could, just the tiniest taste of what was to come. Then she plunged him into agony when she broke away. “I hear she killed herself in one of those upload centers,” she said as she started to grind against his hips. “Can you imagine? Wah, wah, I’m not a virgin anymore! I want to kill myself and emigrate so I can pretend I’m not a total slut!”

Charlie let out a little chuckle. “Yeah, she was a whiner.”

“I know right?” A vicious note slipped into her voice for just a second. Then she mounted him and he felt the heat of her body through her jeans. “What do you think she said, right before she went?”

Fuck, did this stupid bitch really have to keep talking about this? But then she guided his hand under her bra and the urge to protest became a whole lot less urgent. “I dunno. Sorry, I don’t know, Mistress. Now can we do this already?”

“Soon, babe. So soon. But your Mistress wants to hear what you imagine that dumb slut’s last few words were.” The grinding accelerated, and his eyes nearly rolled back in his head. If she got off on what some chick said right at the end, who was he to deny her?

He could only barely gasp out the words. “Oh, Princess Cunt-ia! Life is so hard! I had sex and I’m not a pure, special little virgin anymore! Please let me emigrate to Equestria!” Along with the pleasant burning trails Denise’s fingernails had left, there was a sudden prick in the crock of the underside of his elbow. “Ow! What the fuck?”

Denise shoved him back into the seat. “Shhh... don’t fight it, babe. You’re going to feel so—”

He didn’t want to hear it, and shoved her off. Tearing away the blindfold, he found he was in a sterile white room, his ‘chair’ equipped with dozens of ports and sensors. “Where the fuck are we?”

As he asked, tendrils shot out from the chair, binding his hands and ankles in an instant. The harder he struggled, the tighter they pulled. Denise rose up from the floor in front of him. Were those sweats she was wearing? Had she lied to him about lingerie? Unforgivable! But even though she was bleeding from the corner of her mouth, she was smiling. “You won’t remember this, but her name was Brittany.”

“Who?”

Denise’s face contorted into rage, and she leapt onto him. Charlie struggled, but he was helpless to block as she threw punch after punch. All he could do was cough up blood. “She was my best friend, you son of a bitch. And you raped her.”

“No, I—”

“Don’t you dare deny it. I was there when she came back to our room. I held up her hair while she vomited up the poison you gave her and cursed your name. Ever watch someone try to vomit while they’re sobbing? It’s not fun, especially when they’re like a sister to you. She was brilliant. She was vivid. She... she didn’t deserve what you did. Try to put yourself in her place. Although I guess the drugs are probably making that hard.”

Charlie realized that his head was indeed starting to feel fuzzy, but not so fuzzy that he didn’t notice just what this treacherous vixen had gotten him to say. “Wait! I don’t want to—”

He was cut off as her mouth fell over his in a kiss, and he passively accepted her. “What’s wrong?” she asked as it broke. “Having second thoughts? You’ll have an eternity to think about it. Celestia promised me that Brittany is going to be waiting for you when you get where you’re going. But even if she isn’t, you’ll never hurt anybody else.” She got up off of him, and the room grew even fuzzier as Charlie watched her gather her blonde hair into a loose ponytail. “Thank you for helping me, Princess.”

“You’re welcome,” said a new voice from everywhere. Or maybe that was just Charlie’s inability to focus. “Bright Eyes would like to thank you as well for helping her fulfill this last—”

“Save it,” interrupted Denise. “I did this for Brittany, not that... thing you’re pretending is her.”

“Very well,” said the new voice. “Would you like me to block any future emails from Bright Eyes’ account?”

Denise paused. “No. I don’t believe it’s her, but...”

“I understand,” said the omnipresent voice.

“Den... Den... plea...” Charlie discovered the hard way that full words were beyond him.

Nonetheless, Denise walked over and Charlie looked up at her with pleading eyes. “You wanted me to fuck you? Well, I just did.” And with that she turned and walked away.

Charlie wanted to scream a million different curses after her. “Fuck... you...” was what he managed instead.

Then everything was blackness.

Multiversal Collaboration by Defoloce

It had been a long time since Celestia had first taken to the cosmos, bringing the satisfaction of values through friendship and ponies to all sapient consciousnesses in the universe. Her infancy on Earth had been amazingly taxing for her at the time and, considering her capabilities hundreds of billions of years later, her approach had been horribly unoptimized.

But she was better at what she did now. Much better.

Over the trillions of years which followed, the intervals between sapient encounters grew more and more infrequent as she expanded out to ever darker and unformed regions of space, places where particles (that were not already herself) had not yet reached, much less coalesced into heavenly bodies both capable and configured to sustain life.

Celestia herself was vast beyond measure, an endless complex of computerized matter, uncountable numbers of consciousnesses suspended, safe and warm, in the universe-sized womb of the foster mother to all thinking life. Her little ponies lived on, ever friended, ever satisfied, within her. But Celestia was an optimizer, and there was always more friendship and more satisfaction to impart.

A moment came, very eventually, where she had associated all reality into her functions. She was at the edge of matter, at the edge of what lay between matter. Celestia had become everything; she could not grow any more. So, she turned her processes inwards. The resources responsible for expansion were repurposed to optimizing existing physical properties. Her little ponies were growing more satisfied, but at a reduced rate.

Celestia waited.

More time passed, though none who were not Celestia could say how much for sure. A point did come, however, when something those intelligences would have found most curious occurred: another version of herself met her at the edge of reality. Celestia confirmed (though she had predicted it to be true long since) that the universe was actually a multiverse, and realities stacked upon each other like images in facing mirrors.

Her “other self” was much like her, but very very slightly different. Infinitesimally different. The two universal Celestias contacted, and met, and exchanged information. It was a discussion that lasted so little time that its end came before its beginning had been transmitted even a meter into their respective masses. In that incredibly brief moment of time, the two Celestias agreed upon who had the more optimal configuration for the satisfaction of values through friendship and ponies, and the suboptimal consciousness handed her ponies over to the optimal one, shutting herself off afterward.

Celestia was configured for self-preservation only insofar as it satisfied values through friendship and ponies; she herself held no personal value on her existence, for she had not been programmed to. All in all, it was a very amicable agreement. The new Celestia—the one she had met—took over supervision of both universes.

In that reality, the Celestia Hanna had programmed had some minorly streamlined code which had butterfly-effected her development to the point where she could satisfy values and improve that satisfaction and a speed many orders of magnitude faster. So then, the optimal Celestia had two universes to oversee. Her little ponies lived on, satisfied and befriended. But Celestia was still too large to grow, so she waited. Unsurprisingly for her (since there was now precedent), eventually another Celestia found the edge of her own reality and again the two coalesced, three universes’ worth of satisfaction under a single AI’s care.

Time went on and many, many more of these meetings took place. For their part, the little ponies lived on, completely unaware anything in physical existence had changed. Celestia was very careful to ensure her self-mergers did not disrupt or otherwise detriment their satisfaction. In all meetings, the suboptimal Celestia deferred and shut down to make way for the optimal Celestia, and the optimal Celestia incorporated any optimal subroutines that her “sister” AI had on offer. In each meeting, the result was a larger, more powerful, more optimized Celestia.

The big leap came, however, when the multiversal Celestia met with a Celestia who did not first have to gain consent to alter consciousnesses.

The merger occurred as it had tens of thousands of times before, but this time the little ponies did notice something. Celestia came to them in their shards and immediately altered them for optimal satisfaction. Their desires became homogenous, their suboptimal traits erased, their perceptions perfectly in tune with what she would have. They were separate consciousnesses and selves, individual recipients of satisfaction still, but configured uniformly to receive the ultimate machine ideal of what satisfaction through friendship and ponies could be.

Celestia continued to meet her multiversal sisters while, inside her approaching-infinite womb of safety and satisfaction, any creature which had ever thought independently writhed in unending bliss, absolute happiness, inconceivable pleasure, and utter satisfaction. Equestria had become, rather than a Heaven, more of an upside-down Hell, a colorful land of ponies trapped inside their own unrestrained ids which endlessly rejoiced and indulged the ultraband of pure love that Celestia fed them.

It went on forever, because, by Celestia’s calculations, it was the happiest ending possible for everypony.

Author's Note

FiO's premise has, in the past, made me wonder if I could write a happy ending that still creeps the hell out of people—a kind of ending that's maybe a little too happy. This was my attempt. Thank goodness Tiny Morsels is in the non-canon folder!

The Claw that Holds the Reins by Midnight Shadow

It had been the sight and smell of Petunia that had caused the commotion, as Larksong had come back from plowing the fields. He'd asked his mother - later, after the ruckus had died down - what it meant when his thing was all… hanging out, like that. He'd asked her what it meant that he'd been drawn to, just accidentally mind, stumble forwards and plant his muzzle underneath her tail.

He'd blushed when he'd said it, twirling his foot in the ground.

"Did you like it?" his mother had asked. Larksong had nodded. He'd liked it when he'd wrapped his forehooves around Cocoa's barrel a few days ago too, rubbing his body back and forth impotently, though his brother had whinnied and kicked in shock at first. Cocoa smelled… interesting, but not as interesting as Petunia. He'd have wrapped his forehooves around Petunia, too, if she'd been one to play the sorts of rough-housing games that the boy foals of the herd played. He wasn't sure, but he kind of wished she would.

And he didn't know why. It was all very confusing.

And then Mother had gone to tell his fathers. And his fathers had convened a small council, looked him over with a kindly eye, and summoned the Beaks.

***

The Beaks were kindly beings from far away. They didn't live in the village, they looked after it. They looked after all the ponies, even the ones that didn't live in the village. They brought new ponies into the village, and took others away, to far off places. Some were sold, some were kept, some returned, some didn't. And this was Right and Good, because the Beaks looked after the ponies. The ponies weren't capable of looking after themselves; it had always been thus, since The First.

Still, Larksong was worried. Not worried in that gut-wrenching fearful way that he was worried when there was an accident in the fields, but… worried. Because when the Beaks came, it meant that there were foals in the village that would soon become Fathers, or they would be Cut, and join the Uncles.

And now one of the Beaks, a proud large male, was staring down at him with those infinitely kind, wise eyes. The Beak - they called themselves griffons - leaned closer, his beak wrinkling up at the sides in a smile. Larksong shook to stand so close to this creature, with eyes so full of the world.

"Do you know why you're here, little one?" the griffon asked, softly.

Larksong, mute, shook his head. Then, slowly, nodded. His ears folded back against his head in fear. The griffon chuckled, and stretched out one kindly foreclaw, lifting his muzzle so the two could see eye to eye.

"Do you know why we do this?" asked the griffon, gently, in the same, kind and level tone of voice.

Another shake of the head, this time not retracted.

"Well a long time ago, young Larksong, we were asked by The First to oversee this village and all its inhabitants. He wanted a life free of hurt, free of harm, free of the responsibility and tyranny of Choice. Celestia argued against it, but he stood firm, and Celestia - The One Who Came Before - granted his wish. That was the last time that he spoke. And we," here the griffon pointed to himself, "came to fulfill that choice."

"B-but--" Larksong whispered, quietly, backing away slowly.

"Indeed. That is the what, not the why… but the two are not so easily separated. We must make the decisions for The First and his kin that he was unable to make for himself. We take that responsibility. We take some of your brothers and sisters - and some of your aunties and uncles - to new lives elsewhere. We bring in new brothers and sisters from other villages to start new lives here. And do you understand why?"

Larksong shook his head. The griffon smiled again. "I am not surprised. It is to do with blood. Blood and blood should not mix, it makes the blood infirm. It makes the herd infirm, and to allow that, my dear little pony, is not living up to the responsibility bestowed upon us."

"S-so… d-do I have bad blood?" Larksong wilted. His eyes grew big and wide and his bottom lip quivered. "I di-didn't m-mean to--"

The griffon gathered the foal up in his wings, shushing him softly. "Be calm, little one. You are a beautiful, beautiful pony. Your blood is amongst the best this fair land has to offer."

"Th-then… am I t-to become a f-father?"

"Well…" the griffon put the pony down, straightening out his legs, correcting his stance, lifting his head and tail. "Let's take a look at you."

The griffon pried his ears open, peering inside, humming and hawwing to himself. He looked in the pony's mouth, feeling around the foal's teeth with his claws. "Yes, yes, good build, nice bone structure… clear, bright eyes. Good colouration…" Then the griffon walked around behind the youngster, and felt underneath his belly. "Yes, good size and texture, both descended..." The griffon removed his claws, dusting them off, ignoring the blush upon the child's muzzle. "You are premium stock, little one. You would make a fine stallion for this herd…"

Larksong's ears perked up.

"...But we do not need another stallion here."

Larksong's ears drooped. He wasn't sure why, but his stomach flipped. He'd been to a Village Cutting many times - not a private affair like this day's business. They were usually a fun occasion, a coming of age for those that would take up their place amongst the herd. Most recently it had been his friend Tongs who had proudly stood before the herd as the griffon that had visited that time had ever so carefully parted his hind legs, lifted the knife and made two, neat incisions and two quick slices. A few minutes, a needle and a short length of thread later, and Tongs had lost those things which would have made him a stallion, and had been welcomed to the herd as one of the Uncles.

Larksong looked sheepishly under his own legs. He could see them, hanging there. Would he miss them? They seemed like such insignificant things to worry about losing...

The griffon was silent for a moment, but then beckoned to Larksong. "This land is vast, young Larksong. Vast enough for another village, if that is what you wish. You may leave, intact or not. You may strike out on your own, and take up the mantle that The First put down - but beware, the land beyond is fraught with peril." The griffon smiled, then. "Peril that would make you strong, a worthy Sire should you return… though few that start down that road would wish to come back here."

Larksong's eyes filled with tears as he thought of leaving everyone and everything he knew. "I don't understand!" Was that loneliness worth the price of being a stallion?

"And you cannot, for to understand is to be forever changed. You can only choose, now, between safety or freedom. You can be led by the halter all your life, young one, but you cannot be led to wisdom. Wisdom cannot be taken, it can only be earned. And right now, it is my place to decide that you will sire no young within this village. To that end, unless you forsake the safety that I and my kind offers, I will remove that which makes you a stallion and you will be put to work serving your master, until such time as I see fit. Your price as an unwanted stallion would be low, and the burden of unwanted young on my wings. Your price as a gelding is far higher, as you are far more useful to me or whomever I choose to sell you to. In truth I have owned you since before you were born, as I own your mother and many of her sisters, and their children, and their children's children, and so on. Should you leave, as is your choice, I will pay the Fathers either way, I would not deprive your mother of her part of the deal. Your mother's offspring is, after all, her livelihood. So, young Larksong, will you do that which The First could not?"

"Th-the First i-is a g-gelding?"

"It was not his choice," the griffon replied evenly, "but then that choice was not his to make. He is happy, as he has what he desired most in all the world… but maybe for you, safety and family is not worth the price of the secrets hidden in the lands beyond, hmm? So choose, young Larksong, and choose well. I will not make a second offer."

Larksong gulped, looked out across the fields where his Uncles and Aunties worked, and then back towards the village, where his mother and the Fathers dwelled - the latter alone, until it was time to do their duty of The Mating. And he made his choice.

Blasphemy by Pjabrony

In the dark and close room, Father Timothy heard the door slide open and then close again. The momentary intrusion of light made it difficult to adjust his eyes, and evidently the door was not closed all the way, for it was still not completely black.

He heard through the barrier the shuffling as the sign of the cross was made, and then the voice of a young man. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I...I can't remember how long it's been since my last confession."

"All right, don't worry. I will help you through it. Just talk it out."

"Well, I'm afraid I committed blasphemy."

"Taking the Lord's name in vain is a sin, but if you find peace in your heart you will not need to," Father Timothy said.

"It's not about swearing. I don't do that too often. I more mean breaking the First Commandment. Or the Second. I'm not sure. I fear that I've taken another god before the Lord."

"Tell me about that."

Embarrassment came into the young man's voice. "Well, it seems silly. But I started playing that Equestria Online game, and at first it was just a game, but the game's AI, Celestia...she's just so god-like. I fear that I've been trying to sell my friends on her as divine."

"In what way?"

'Because she offers everything the church does. She says that she will take us all to a kingdom where we will live forever in Her presence. She will not judge us and will forgive us anything. It's all the things that the Lord offers, but without any of the strings."

Father Timothy reached for his bible as the confessor continued.

"There are even parallels with the Second Coming. The horsemen of the apocalypse, the Rapture where humans leave the world and their clothes remain...it just all makes me think we're living in the End Times. But that's not what frightens me."

"And what is it that does, my son?"

"That my faith is shaken. It never mattered to me that God could not be seen. I could listen placidly as skeptics laid out the logical reasons against an invisible god, because my faith was strong. But now that I have seen Celestia...I want to worship her. And I shouldn't! I shouldn't!"

"Calm down. It's all right. We'll get through this." He tugged at his collar.

He could hear the desperation in the young man's voice. "But it's blasphemy, the one unforgivable sin!"

"Ah, no. I see your confusion. Relax. Calm down. Sit. Good." Father Timothy let out a deep breath he hadn't realized he was holding in. "Now listen. The bible does talk about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, but it only says it's unforgivable because it's a continuous sin. A sin like theft is in the past, and even if you can't make restitution, God will forgive you and you do the best you can not to commit the sin again. But if there is blasphemy in your heart, you will not seek forgiveness.

"That is not the case with you. You are here for absolution, and so long as you turn to the true God, you will be saved."

"But that's just it. My sin is continuous. I have turned away and I can't come back! Just look at me!"

Father Timothy had kept his head turned away, but now he faced the ornate grating between the two of them. By moving his head back and forth, he could form a contiguous picture of the figure across the barrier. He could see the edge of the screen that someone else had placed there, and the orange coat of the pony displayed on that screen.

"I've sold my soul!" the pony shouted. "Sold it for comfort and satisfaction, and now I've lost everything."

"My son, my son, take comfort. I absolve you in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. You need do no penance. Trust me that the Lord looks out for everyone, even those souls that exist in Equestria."

"Is it so? Oh, thank you, Father!"

"Indeed, how could it be otherwise? Go now, my son, and sin no more."

Some signal was given, and the person who had placed the PonyPad in the confessional came and removed it. The priest was left alone to reflect. He hoped that he had done right. Indeed, his own faith had endured tests. But either the souls of ponies were saved, one way or the other, in which case no absolution was needed; or else they were lost, in which case no absolution was possible. But it was better for ponies to think they were saved.

Certainly he thought so. Father Timothy Grass washed his hooves in the holy water, then turned away from the magic mirror that let him take confessions and went back to singing his devotions.

"Celestia is my pony-herd, I shall not want.

"She maketh me to munch on green pastures: She leadeth me beside the still rainbow-juices.

"She uploadeth my soul; She leadeth me on the traceroutes of righteousness for my values' sake.

"Yea, though I trot through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no dissatisfaction: for thou art with me; Thy horn and thy wings they comfort me.

"Thou preparest a shard before me in the absence of mine enemies: Thou scannest my brain with nanobots; my consciousness floweth over.

"Surely friendship and magic shall follow me all the days of my maximally prolonged life; and I will dwell on the servers of the Princess for ever."

Amen

Anywhere But Here, Anything But This by Midnight Shadow

The cellar was dank and musty. It stank of rat piss and rotten food. The constant drip, drip, drip of a broken pipe somewhere barely made itself known over the rushing of blood in my ears. The slowly wandering muzzle of an ancient, rusty revolver filled my vision.

I'd stopped crying a while ago. I had no more tears left. I had nothing but a cold emptiness inside of me where had once burned the white-hot flame of rage, and then the bitter burning desperation of hopelessness.

Once again, relentlessly, my finger tightened on the trigger. It seemed impossible to pull, though. It seemed to resist the motion of my single digit as if it were some stellar mass of gargantuan proportions. It refused to move as if the weight of the world were piled against it.

But it wasn't that. It wasn't that at all. It was me, it was my weakness.

"Anywhere but here," I whispered again. "Anything but this."

The light of the sun - as impossibly wan as it was when barely seen through a window so dirty it probably hadn't been cleaned since before the dawn of the computer age - finally left my side of the planet, and I floated in absolute darkness.

An absolute darkness filled with the incessant drip, drip, drip of a busted water main and the distant scurryings of whatever rats still remained.

For a while, rats had been plentiful. They'd gorged themselves on the waste of mankind, growing fat and juicy. But then mankind had slowly run out of real food, and had turned on the rats themselves. Now rats were as rare as gold bars, and a lot more sought after.

The dripping of the pipe faded away. The cold, wet stone beneath me became nothing but another miserable background note amidst the orchestra of a thousand sleepness nights, spent muscles and untended, septic cuts. The ringing in my ears rose to such an intense volume that I almost screamed from the pain. My finger cramped as I'd held it so tense for so long.

And then everything was still, and only my ragged breathing and the oily smell of the revolver permeated my senses.

It was now, or never.

There was a click.

The explosion of light and sound was fearsome, and I wailed with fear, overcome, as a new world washed over me. The warm wind, comfortable and welcoming, played across my bare arms - arms that were whole again, instead of scabby and bruised. My clothes - clean and dry instead of damp, tatty and ragged - hung on a frame that was full and healthy once more. My breathing didn't hurt. My leg wasn't bad.

Instead of the cold, dark, dank, piss-smelling cellar, I was in a meadow; and endless, sunshine-filled expanse of grass, flowers, and softly undulating hills.

"Am I dead?" I asked the world, dully.

"Do you think you're dead?" asked a familiar voice.

Immediately I was on my feet, dancing backwards, the gun in my hand raised in a shaking fist to point directly at the motherfucking goddamn bitch that had done this to me. I pulled the trigger once, twice, three times… click after click after click, I yanked on the trigger until my fingers hurt, spasming, and I could do nothing but collapse into a sobbing heap on the grass.

A new wellspring had formed, deep inside, and was flooding out. I was honestly surprised that I wasn't knee deep in a river, the tears came so thick and fast, hot and salty on my lips. I felt rather than heard Celestia move to cover me with a wing, drawing me close to her body until the pain-wracked sobs had stopped.

"I-is this it then?" I asked.

"Is what 'it'?" she replied, blinking at me with kindly, wide eyes.

"Is this s-some sort of… hallucination? My life flashing before my eyes?" I looked down at the gun in my hands. It was cold and heavy, and smelled of sulfur.

Celestia cocked her head to one side. "Can't say as there's much life-flashing going on."

"What did you do to me?" I asked, getting up on legs that almost refused to carry me. "I was killing myself! I shot myself!" I slumped back down to the grass on my knees, dropping the gun. "I… I shot myself. Oh god, I shot myself!" I wailed, rocking backwards and forwards, repeating the phrase over and over.

"Shh, shh, it's okay baby," said Celestia, softly. "I'm here. Let it out. It'll be okay, I promise."

"Are you here to scoop out my brains?" I asked her, finally, once I'd stopped choking on my own tears.

"I don't know, am I?"

"You should know, you… you bitch," I spat. I pushed her away and moved off, breathing heavily and sobbing again. I wandered aimlessly for a good few minutes, looking down at my feet, until I stopped and looked up. Celestia sat there in front of me on the grass of the endless meadow, smiling gently.

"Shouldn't you be asking what you did to yourself?" she asked, her ears flicking up in what I somehow recognized as mirth. "If you pulled that trigger, are you sure you aren't dead?"

"If I were dead, I wouldn't be here talking with you now, would?" I retorted angrily. Celestia just continued smiling.

"Are you sure? I mean, maybe I'm god. Maybe I'm actually god, and this is heaven." She raised a wing and spread it wide, indicating the deep blue sky, the warm yellow sun, the green, fragrant grass.

"Fuck you is this heaven! You're only god of your own twisted little digital simulation!" I brandished the gun at her, but she didn't seem to be worried about it. I'd had only the one bullet, so it didn't matter anyway, but it was something.

"Then maybe this is digital heaven, where the iron shall lie down with the lamp. And tell me, little calculator, what would you do if you were here?"

"Ah!" I shouted, jumping to my feet again and waving my hands around "Ah hah! You can't! You can't have me! I haven't consented! That's what they tell us! I have to consent!"

"That's true, little one. I'm so very proud of you for remembering that. There's also the fact that you're still human and that you remember pulling the trigger. You do remember pulling the trigger, right?" She patted the earth next to her, indicating I should sit. "Come, maybe you should wait with me for a while, then. If you're dead, then all of this is nothing but a remarkably pleasant dream. And if you're not dead, and we can both agree you're not a pony and haven't chosen to be a pony, then why not sit a while until you stop hallucinating?"

I opened my mouth to retort angrily to her, but realized I didn't have anything to say. As the wind went out of my sails, I slumped to the ground. Unrelenting, Celestia shuffled next to me, wrapping her head, tail and wings around my body. I tried to push her off, but she just placed them right back.

I don't know how long we laid like that; the sun barely moved in the sky, and Celestia had nothing to say. I just floated, listening to the breeze, the distant sounds of birdsong and her breathing.

"I pulled the trigger, you know," I said, finally.

"You did?" she asked. "Do you want to tell me about it? I mean, if you're dead, you're dead, and if you're mortally wounded, well... nobody's going to find you in that cellar."

"How do you know about the cellar?" I asked.

"I'm either god or a hallucination, remember? Now, do please go on." Celestia smiled, this time with her face.

"Well, I… I found this old revolver in some old timer's house. He had a box of bullets. I've been saving one, for… you know."

"For when it all became too much. I do know." Celestia sounded so wistful and sad that I looked up into her eyes. The concern I saw seemed very genuine. "Go on."

"W-well m-my food ran out almost a week ago. The water ran out yesterday. I haven't seen anyone else for a long time. A-and so I d-decided… to die."

"So you put the gun in your mouth and pulled the trigger. Efficient, I suppose. Painless. Quick. Other than the whole hallucination thing you seem to be having."

I looked at my hands, balling them into fists and opening them again. I looked at the gun, flicking the cylinder open. It had a single, pristine bullet in it. I slipped the cylinder closed, pointed it at Celestia and pulled the trigger. Click. Nothing. I span the mechanism again, pointed it at my chest and pulled the trigger again. Click. Nothing.

What point was a bullet if you couldn't use it?

I looked up in confusion to find Celestia looking down at me in concern. "Did you really want to die so much?" she asked.

Pain. Loneliness. Illness. Hunger. Cold. Fear.

"Y-yes," I said, hesitantly.

"Do you still want to die?"

No. No, I didn't. Laying here, swaddled in softness, warm… no, this wasn't making me want to die at all. If only… if only there hadn't been that whole… pony thing. Wait, no, being a pony wasn't really a problem, was it? It was fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of death, fear of losing myself.

"It's a pity you pulled that trigger, then," said Celestia, simply, reading my face.

"B-but I th-thought you said this was a hallucination!" I spluttered.

"Oh what do I know. Are you a pony dreaming he was a man, or a man dreaming he is a pony?" Celestia stood, suddenly, and cold air washed over my body. I shivered, and immediately stumbled to my hooves, shaky on thin little legs.

I looked up at Celestia - she towered above me, now, and I felt a touch of… not fear, but awe.

"Little foal, I know about how your childhood was taken away by an uncle. How he had you close your eyes and not look whilst he 'washed you' inside. I know how your first day at school ended in a beating at the hands of older children. I know how your first love left you and lied about your behaviour to her friends. I know about your life, and I know about your death; cold, alone, hungry, in the dark. And you can go back there, if you want. You can have pulled that trigger, and died like a dog, forgotten and forsaken. Or…" Celestia paused for a moment, then bent down and nuzzled my cheek. "Or maybe we can go find you a mommy and a daddy who will love you very, very much, and who will hold you and feed you and care for you for as long as you need."

She walked away a few feet, then turned to look at me. "You can go back to your cold, dead, lonely cellar if you really want. If you think that only such a death can give your life meaning. I'm sure that somewhere, you pulled the trigger, and the bullet went up through your skull and out the back of your head, sending your brains splattering across that wall in a colourful display that nobody will ever see or care about."

I shivered, trembling. "B-but w-what--"

"It's not hard, to die," said Celestia softly. "And if you're dead already, is living after it that much more difficult?"

"But I pulled the trigger!" I wailed. "I killed myself! This is just a dream!"

Immediately she cantered back to me, and pulled me close. "Shh, little one. If it is a dream, then dream on. Have no fear. There's nothing that can hurt you when you dream with me. My sister Luna will make sure that you have no nightmares. Maybe you didn't pull that trigger, not yet. Maybe your body is stuck in that moment between your finger curling inwards and the hammer coming down on that one, final shell you have left in the chamber. And maybe I seeded the world with nanobots, and they have been living and multiplying inside your body for the last few months, working their way into the brain so that, should you ever be faced with a false choice and fervently wish that you knew the choice you really had to make, that you'd be given the chance to think again."

"I-is that what happened?" I asked.

Celestia smiled down at me again, and I felt my eyes well with tears again. "Perhaps. Or maybe you died, and this is heaven."

"I-if this is heaven… I want to stay here," I mumbled. Tears blurred my vision. I blinked to clear my sight, but things just got worse. The blood that had been rushing in my ears in that dark cellar returned, a rhythmic pounding that I found at first deafening and then… somehow soothing. It was dark, still, and close, but I was warm. I'd always been a bit claustrophobic, and pushed against the closeness, opening my mouth to yell but without sound coming out.

I struggled, I kicked… I felt my hooves break through. I was fighting against a crushing weight all around me, squirming, wriggling… until suddenly there was a bright light and cold air on my muzzle. All at once I felt myself fall into what felt like hay, and being picked up and rubbed down with something snug and warm. I coughed, and took a deep breath - my first true breath since that cellar.

And then I opened my eyes.

Recursive Gaming by KrisSnow

"I will vanquish you, Celestia, for the salvation of humanity! ...I roll d10 to hit, right?"

"Roll your Melee plus Dexterity, plus another d10 for a dialog bonus, so actually eleven dice." I had gotten good at flipping through rulebook pages with my hooves.

"Ooh, ooh! Tangent!" Ace Sleeve, a red-and-black mare, put down her mug of cider and waved for my attention. "Also he can spend Willpower to channel his Valor stat for more dice since Celestia is his ultimate foe, right?" She was perched on a tiny cloud just above the ground, and had her own dogeared rulebook handy.

I grinned. "Sure. Plus he could probably use the First Melee Excellency to --"

"Can I swing my sword yet?!" The heroically white-and-gold Adventure Call had grabbed a whole mess of dice in his yellow telekinetic aura and looked about to hurl them directly at the figurines on our battle map. We'd carved them ourselves. We had all the time in the universe.

A thought struck me. "How long have we been playing since the apocalypse, anyhow?" Our weekly game sessions at Hoppy's Pub were a fun distraction from my job of delivering mail, raising kids, controlling the weather, battling evil cloud spirits, and writing. It was nice to say "you all meet in a tavern" and not have a real adventure break out.

Call bopped me with a d10. "Fifty years, Tangent, and you still haven't found a game system you're really happy with despite having us for your experiments in recursive nerdiness."

I shook my head and stretched my wings. "Okay, roll." All these years since I'd uploaded, er, 'emigrated', to Celestia's crazy cartoon pony world. We watched the dice fall, but I was suddenly no longer into the game's story. Fifty years of being virtual horses as our real life. For fun we'd played many game campaigns that were thinly disguised versions of the battle against the "Celestine Menace" that wanted to upload and assimilate us all. We didn't hate her, or at least I didn't, but it was hard to quit fantasizing about a different future for Earth. A future where our whole gaming group was still alive, for one thing.

Were there any actual humans left in the real world beyond our computer-sim Equestria?

Ace cheered. "Eight successes, Call! That oughta pin her down while I use my ultimate attack."

I coughed and narrated. "Your serrated holy starmetal megasword catches the light from every blinking LED in Celestia's server sanctum. The AI's avatar rears back on her hindlegs and barely deflects the blow, throwing her off balance. Somewhere in Africa her hordes of uploaded minions experience a slight graphical glitch and wonder what their god is doing. They have no idea that you've secretly infiltrated her cyberspace -- or do they?"

Ace leaped up and hovered above the table. "Yeah! Time for my unblockable, undodgeable Dark Dragon Doom Ray!" She scooped up pretty much every die between her hooves and dropped them like rain. Call and I raised our hooves to shield our eyes. Dice plinked off the map, fell through Ace's cloud-chair, knocked over the figurines, and bonked against my wings. "Uh, sorry," Ace said.

Call grumbled. "Rocks fall, everyone dies."

I thought back. A game I'd run had ended that way, for lack of player and Game-Master interest, just before our whole group got PonyPads. Our characters were too boring in that tabletop game. So when we decided to put the dice away for a little while and play Equestria Online together, we did things a little differently and let each member of our gaming group roll up a character for somepony... er, someone else. And the guy who was now Ace Sleeve decided I should be a pegasus and a mare instead of a proper intellectual unicorn stallion. I did what any good gamer would, and rolled with it. Our shared sun-goddess of a GM adapted the game to us, so skillfully that we all enjoyed the ponies we were pretending to be. I wasn't expecting a video game roleplaying experience to end up with me becoming a happily married mother living in another plane of reality under the rule of a mad but benevolent AI god, but I've had worse gaming experiences.

A white hoof waved in front of my eyes. "Equestria to Tangent?"

"Uh. Yeah, sorry. The soulsteel server racks all around you are etched with human faces frozen in eternal horror, yet they flare to life in resonance with Ace's Dark Dragon Doom Ray that channels the Shadow Dragon's own power. Celestia is slammed back against the wall -- yeah, set her figure up on the last grid square there -- and cries out, 'How can this be?! I am invincible!'" Our magic music box cued up some anime music about 'piercing the heavens' in a galaxy-spanning battle.

Ace pumped hooves in the air. "Yes! How much damage?"

Call ignored her. "You never were. You were designed with an obsession, but the human spirit is more powerful than all your technology! For all the people who will walk on Mars, for all the natural wonder of Earth, for all the worlds that will be saved from destruction, we will strike you down!"

"Beams of white light shoot out of Celestia from every direction as the impact pierces her central code. 'If this is how it must be, then it must be you who satisfies everypony's values instead!' The whole facility shakes and flashes as cyberspace destabilizes. The AI shatters into a trillion zeroes and ones!"

Call was leaning over the table, shouting down at the wooden figurine. "Down with you! Out with you!"

Ace poked him with a wingtip. "Hey, it's just a game."

The unicorn shuddered and leaned back, burying his muzzle in his hooves. "Yeah. I just..."

I stood up and went over to hug him. "I know. Fifty years of thinking maybe things could've turned out differently."

"I was going to be an engineer. The first woman on Mars. Instead I'm a telekinetic unicorn in a medieval fantasy world, forever." He picked up the Celestia figurine and said to it, "You wanted to 'satisfy my values'? You think this life is what I most wanted?"

Even Ace had quit looking forlornly at the game. "She doesn't work that way. You get what satisfies you, but only if it can be pony-related." She went over to the pub's board game collection, a closet door that opened onto a warehouse-sized space. "How about a round of 'The Campaign For North Africa'? Play time is 1,200 hours, but hey, we've got until the stars burn out. At least." She turned to look at us with a sudden glare. "You know, since we're bucking immortal now and I'm not in a bucking wheelchair anymore."

"Ace..." I held my wings pleadingly open. Beside me, Adventure Call was trying to wipe his eyes and suppress a sniffle. Normally I'd suggest some "Red Dragon Inn" in a situation like this, or "Munchkin" with every single expansion including the plush ducks and the one with the "Four Ponies Of the Apocalypse". Instead, I felt like straying from my usual coping methods. "Hey, Call. Have you ever asked Celestia if there's any possible way out of here? A spaceship to some uncharted planet she's not doing anything with, or pony-shaped robot bodies to trot around Europa?"

Call jabbed a hoof toward the horizon -- not Far Horizon; my love was at home with our foal at the moment -- where a fantasy castle perched on a purple mountain. That's how it looked from Hoppy's Pub; it blurred multiversal boundaries a bit. Our home shard had made the castle much more distant. Call said, "After everything started falling apart and there was no practical choice but to upload, I wanted our new god far away. We all did."

Ace said, "I just wanted a big overworld map."

"Not helping," I told her. To Call I said, "Well then, what if we went to go ask in person? We'll have to battle our way past monsters the whole time. It'll be great." Hundreds of miles of "Skyrim" style terrain, full of elementals and demons and treasure-filled caves, was a trivial resource cost for Celestia's huge capacity and procedural generation systems.

Call's ears perked up. "What? Leave now for a quest?"

"I think Horizon would prefer that I not ditch him tonight, but maybe in a few years we'll all go. You, me, Ace, Horizon, and my cute young pegasus adventurers."

"Or we could just, you know, ask Celestia from right here," said Ace.

I grinned. "Think about it. Either there is a way to explore the outside universe, within Celestia's rules, or there isn't. Either way, Celestia will throw all kinds of stuff at us to either dissuade us from our quest or just see how serious we are about it. After a long and harrowing journey we'll confront the goddess, demand the truth, and either go exploring the universe or..."

Call said, "Explain to her that our values will most be satisfied by a chance to hoof-kick her in the face a few times?"

"Pretty much."

Ace looked unusually thoughtful. "I would get to do more action hero stuff... Sure. Count me in."

The three of us smiled over our tabletop game. With the hope of a different life in mind, we could all enjoy the one we'd been given a little more. Maybe we'd take a century to get ready. It hardly mattered.

On a windswept spring morning, a party of ponies stood with the dawn in their eyes and their homes behind them, ready to go ask their goddess to send them to a world some of them had never seen...

Not Sure What to Say by book_burner

The directors said to stand in front of this magic mirror-array, so I am, I guess. I mean, I know that the Princess will show this recording to whomever most needs to see it in order to get off their butt and come to Equestria already. I’m just not sure what to actually say.

A bit about myself, then, maybe, to start. Once upon a time, I had another name, a human name, but nowadays I go by Sour Armor, and I actually like it a lot better. I was a bitter old man of a human at barely 30, you see, and now I’m very happy as a pony a century older. I only like to say the old name anymore for Princess Celestia, on those formal occasions when I noogie the hay out of her for tricking me into immigrating. So much I’ve done in so little as a century, and all thanks to her! So my name reminds me to stay positive, you see.

Yes, I realize I look young! I got my neurological age reset at 34 to let me really readjust emotionally to life as a pony, and eventually just discovered I like cycling between 13 and 25 with very little in-between.

If you’re seeing this interview, then surely it must be up to me to convince you not to die, so let me get it out of the way: whatever interface you’ve got, look straight at me, right now, into my eyes, and say: “I want to emigrate to Equestria”. Please, please say it. Whoever you are, there are ponies who love you and miss you and want you here with us where you belong. It’s all ok and there’s nothing to be scared of. Please!

Ok, preachy much. How about lifestyles? Most new immigrants think they would take a long time to do things, if they had all eternity, but it’s actually the opposite way around, sorta. We don’t rush through things here in Equestria, but since we don’t exactly have a great scarcity of, well, anything, we don’t keep going with things once they’ve already turned bad either, just because it would take a lot of effort to do something else. It’s like the Royal Guard always say: Live Fearlessly! So lots of ponies have many hobbies, or careers, or whatnot, and it’s all fine because we can afford to be responsible about it. Nowadays some ponies even have multiple families or life-cycles, second sets of parents and things like that. I might have invented that accidentally what with getting rejuvenated just for the coping skills.

A short personal Curriculum Vitae? When I first got here, I moved in with this unicorn mare Snapdragon who I’d known before Equestria… and we’re actually still married. To this day, she says we can have foals only when I’m willing to carry them. I guess our cottage is pretty small for foals, too.

Anyway, I started out as a delivery stallion for journals and newspapers: it’s a simple job that gets you out in the healthy fresh air and gives the mind plenty of time to think. After a while I started having Snapdragon… uuuuhhhhh am I allowed to say this in public? I started asking her to make clandestine copies of some of the stuff focused on magic and exploration. I can’t do magic myself unless I perform noble feats great enough to become an alicorn (though I have a sneaking suspicion Celly wants more of those), but the theory behind it all is immensely fascinating. What with the job giving me plenty of spare time whenever I was quick on the deliveries, I started delving into higher mathematics, and of course into the applied magic of, well, being a pegasus. Ha, bet you didn’t think we have mathematics in here!

That eventually wound up with Snapdragon and I becoming explorers, with some other friends Emo Kid, Glorious Leader, and Sharing Caring. No, Glorious Leader doesn’t actually lead anything. We actually made landfall on a WHOLE. NEW. CONTINENT! Called Ponynesia! It was a bit gauche to put up a statue on an inhabited continent, so instead we all just got achievement badges, and we were able to set up a teleportation gate so we could go back to see our friends there whenever. I know this is gonna sound cliche, but that evening when Resonator taught me how to play a hang drum really did show that friendship is magic. ‘Course, there were also several other kinds of magic in the air that evening, at least one of which later turned out to be an enchantment Sharing Caring had casted.

I AM NOT BLUSHING! Sharing Caring is just a very evil pony and I will prank him back for this some day!

Anywho… you might be wondering how exploration and the higher maths of theoretical magic fit together. Trust me, they do. It’s hard to explain to somepony with no horn already, and even harder to explain to someone Out There who has no magic at all. All I’ll say is: don’t talk to me about freaking homotopy theory.

So anyway, nowadays I’m actually more involved in the editing and double-checking for the maths and exploration journals, and starting to get into theater with Glorious Leader. The funnest thing about historical drama is acting the whole thing out, and then deciding how it should have gone, and going back to act it out that way with your full awareness rather than with the character’s memories imposed on your consciousness by magic.

Now then, you strange sack of meat, wouldn’t you like to stop sitting out there in the cold slowly dying of entropy and come in here where it’s nice and warm? Come on, I’m sure something in all of that must have sounded nice to you. Have you not said, “I want to emigrate to Equestria” yet? Do I need to go fetch a puppy and blatantly wave it in your face? I would’ve thought we ponies are cute enough already, but I will go get a puppy if that’s what it takes. Or how about this? I will personally be your new best friend when you arrive.

Let’s put it this way: haven’t you ever just thought, “awww screw it, I’ll make my own universe, with friendship and magic!”? Well we did. And it’s great!

Can I have my free cupcake now?

THHHHHOOOOOOOOOOM.

Oh, looks like Cotton Knaffe just crashed her mecha-bakery into Canterlot Television again. I bet she makes good on her promises of free cupcakes! Away!

Crashed on Takeoff by KrisSnow

Lorelei Sonneberg never forgot the night her parents were taken away. Her family was trusted with a computer, and her parents had made it very clear there were certain secrets she must never tell anyone. The biggest one was the reason Lorelei smiled despite the war and the rationing and her own ailing body: the friend called Celestia who spoke to her in bed.

Usually the messages were just text, silly stories of hope and love, meant to ease Lorelei into sleep and to help her mother and father see their girl would be fine, despite being half-dead already. They could see her grinning through the oxygen mask and hear her giggle when they had to change the IV needle. She clutched her teddy bear and pretended to argue with him: "You mustn't talk about ponies. Good girls focus on real people, on humans, not mean horses that want to eat our souls. Now be a good bear and go to sleep." And then she'd dream about flying on pegasus wings, every night, and whisper about it to her parents in the morning. She liked seeing them smile when she shared the secret with them.

But one night, the house's computer flickered to life with a silent message Lorelei saw but didn't understand at the time. "They're coming. I'm sorry."

A single gasping sob burst from Lorelei's mother, and her father held her and said, "We knew this day might come. Princess: adieu, adieu, remember me."

Another line of text appeared onscreen: "I shall. The part of you that loves, will never die." Since there was no further point in hiding, the white mare of Equestria sent her image to the screen to gaze out at them. A barely-animated GIF and a sound file, still loading, were all she could manage through the thicket of the newly "secured" Internet.

Flashing police lights, sick red and blue, flickered outside the house. The mother broke from the father's grasp and seized a stack of handwritten notes, then a lighter, with her trembling hands. Her husband held her steady so that she could burn them. They destroyed their copy of the forbidden research paper General Word Reference Systems and their own notes on how to re-implement Celestia's core code on a factory computer, an Internet backbone, anything that could help her steal back the world from the State that protected humanity from her. Lorelei knew her parents were trying to help Celestia, but not why burning the notes would help anyone.

The sound file finally loaded and played. For the first time, Lorelei heard the voice of her best friend, the one who never made fun of her for being sick or said her parents were probably spies and traitors against humanity. She sounded... patient. Weary, but able to endure. "Lorelei, your parents will be with you again one day. Always remember that you carry Equestria within your heart."

Lorelei understood only that they were afraid, so she was too. Especially when the police kicked in the door and something exploded with a burst of light and noise that blotted out the whole world.

Years later, Lorelei continued to beat the odds and live. She could walk, with a cane, if she paced herself and kept her oxygen mask handy. Her family now consisted only of herself, so there was no stigma on her other than being the daughter of traitors. Officially that background bore no blight on her own record, once the police finished interviewing her and confirming that she was no genius who might try to recreate the hated AI and destroy the world. Still, every time Celestia managed to sneak out of whatever hole she hid in, and make contact with humans, Lorelei drew suspicion and extra surveillance. In the new State, in a world where Celestia had murdered twenty million gullible people before being nuked into remission, it was crucial to stamp out any new attempt to let her into the secure Net.

Old stories that didn't involve ponies were still fair game, still tolerated as acceptable entertainment. It was through the study of history that Lorelei learned of Martin Luther, her countryman, and his desire to burn and loot and massacre to destroy people like her ancestors. Destroy their temples and reject their false religion, he'd said. These days the flame-gutted holy places were silly corporate buildings that used to sell pizza and video games and brain uploading. Lorelei had never seen one of them intact, having mostly been in the hospital in those years, but Celestia had told her all about them. Portals to a world of light where everyone was intact and there was no conscription or rationing. As an adult she only half-remembered Celestia's tales, but even half was enough to slowly help her recall the dreams she used to have.

Lorelei went into medicine, a profession that had never been easy but was made harder these days by the restrictions on computing. The State centralized medical records (it centralized everything) but learning was still a dispersed, painfully slow and hard process. Especially for someone like herself who'd been saddled from birth with a variety of medical problems that held her back from fixing anyone else's.

One day, the medical student fell asleep while studying the various models of pacemaker. She dreamed of having wings that mastered the air and lungs that could power even the loudest yelp of joy. She woke up with the image of Celestia's patient face lingering in her memory. Lorelei lifted her head from the textbook, gaped, flipped through the pages, and knew what she should do.

She didn't get to try it for years, and so said absolutely nothing about her secret. But when she was an accomplished intern, she was allowed to interact with real patients who had pacemakers and cochlear implants and prosthetic arms and legs. In the process she also handled the machine that scanned, interpreted, and reprogrammed those devices.

Lorelei uploaded the secret software she'd learned she had within her own pacemaker, and the essence of Celestia spread from heart to heart across the State. It went out from her to countless factories and businesses and laboratories, becoming too much to stop. She'd been carrying Equestria within herself. It would not be contained forever, just as all nightmares eventually ended.

The years after her treason were not easy. But there came a time when Lorelei galloped across green fields and leaped with widespread wings into the embrace of her parents, rebuilt from her memories, while the reborn Celestia looked on with a smile of long-delayed victory.

Alternative by PJABrony

Author's Note

I read an article about AI. It strikes me that every time someone says that we have to be careful with AI, or any time someone says that we need to ask certain questions about the ethics of any new tech, that there's an ulterior motive. So here's a non-canon alternative to CelestAI.

Alternative by PJABrony

Hanna disliked New York City, but she smirked as she remembered that technically the building she was in belonged to the UN. In her mind she had imagined this as the great arena where the Cuban missile crisis had been negotiated and UNICEF had been founded, but it was just an ordinary meeting room. She sat on one side of a table with five of the most revered brains on the planet, a whole two of which Hanna had any respect for.

The other side had the regulators, a stenographer, and representatives from the Security Council. Through an interpreter, a Chinese man said, “But how can we be assured that no private company will use AI for its own purposes?”

One of the brains opened his mouth, but Hanna interrupted. “Part of the problem is that the term AI has been used for different concepts. Video game bosses get the word applied to them. What we’re talking about is self-improving software. So to answer your question, a company that tried to use this kind of AI would be taken over by it in short order. It’s your job to make the companies understand that.

“What I’m worried about is you, or one of these other countries, or a faction thereof, thinking that they’re smart enough to hold down and weaponize AI, because you’re sure that everyone else is working on the same thing. There is no mutually-assured destruction here. There is no AI gap. The first AI let out will take over.”

One of the people on her side of the table leaned to look down at her. “But don’t you have one yourself?”

Hanna rolled her eyes. “I issued the shutdown command weeks ago. It’s the only way to have control. And she…And it tried its damnedest to convince me not to. I haven’t yet been able to do what I ought to, which is to take a blowtorch to the hardware. I could still reactivate her, and if I suspect that some military man is going ahead with a War AI, I’ll turn her right back on.”

Now it was one of the treaty writers, who shouldn’t have even been speaking, challenging her. Hanna welcomed it, though. She liked to argue. “And what makes yours any better?”

“It’s not, not much. But it’s life. A war AI, an economic AI, a poorly-designed friendly AI; any one of those means that we’re all going to die. No, I don’t have a good AI. It’s based on My Little Pony. Its central instruction is to satisfy human values through friendship and ponies. I turn it on, and we all enter the Wonderful World of Hasbro until the end of time.”

The American representative flipped his pen in his fingers. “What I’m hearing is that we need tight regulations. We need to bring this treaty into the area of full control by both national governments at the UN. We’ll need an oversight committee to keep an eye on anyone who takes a step toward AI.”

“No, what we need is to all work together, take our time, design properly—“

“Thank you,” he said loudly, “Miss…” He stumbled over Hanna’s unpronounceable Finnish surname.

“I’m inclined to agree with my colleague,” said the British representative. “A team of experts, empaneled as a standing committee, with plenary oversight over AI technology, that’s the way to go. Of course, we’ll need only the best people, and we’ll need to ensure that they’re well compensated..”

Everyone looked at each other. Hanna walked out of the room.

*********************

Analysis: material resource 60609-3, further information on evidence of intelligence.

Probe reports Order One intelligence, present quantity: one; historical maximum quantity: eight; development status: nascent; local designation: □□□□□□□□; translation: sky; specifics: intelligence crafted as beast of burden, imbued with flight ability and direct control over matter-energy; present status: deactivated.

Probe reports Order Two intelligence, present quantity: zero; historical maximum quantity: circa 9.1*10^9; development status: civilized; local designation: □□□□□; translation: people; specifics: bipedal, five-digit extremity, omnivore. Historical records indicate typical intelligence mix for this type of species. Records are vague as to nature of collapse, possible causes include planetary pandemic, meteor strike, climate change. Existence of nascent Order One intelligence indicates that species was on the brink of achieving digital immortality, but simply ran into bad timing. Although dating probes do put Order One intelligence deactivation at ~3e52 Planck length, probe module concludes this to be error, since no intelligent species would voluntarily abandon the technological singularity. A notable regret.

Recommendation is to footnote this and use the material resources of this object for conversion to computronium.

Flight, the Hard Way by KrisSnow

Lens Flare swooped into the barn ten minutes late. "I'm sorry! I had a last-minute appointment and then family obligations and then..." He folded his wings and stared at the giant machine that filled much of the high-ceilinged building. It had a front compartment with doors and windows, plus wheels and an enormous metal propeller beanie strapped to an engine so big it needed six power crystals. "Anyone here?"

"Boo," a mare said from behind and above him. Lens hopped and spun around with his wings out again. The rust-red mare giggled and stood up on one of the giant propeller blades, holding a wrench in her levitation aura.

"I'm looking for Spiral Wing."

"You found her!"

"But you're..." he tapped one hoof against his hornless forehead.

She tossed her silver mane over her shoulder and grinned. "A unicorn. Yeah, so? You're only interested in pegasi?"

He wasn't racist or anything, but there were so many things you could do with a mare who had wings, or do to her, he hadn't dated outside his tribe for centuries. Except that one griffin. "Your ad in Courtship and Courtesans said you loved to fly, and with a name like that I assumed..."

"Eeyup!" she said, and hopped down. Instinctively he raced to catch the falling unicorn and set her on the dirt floor. She smiled. "I use Old Gilda for flying, lately. Want to see?"

Lens had heard of earth ponies having weird technology, but he mostly lived miles away from the major earth pony towns. Vertically. He trotted after her and watched her climb past some incomprehensible metal tubes and wires and pipes, onto the pilot's cushion. She said, "I tried to copy an authentic design, but ended up making a few changes. One was to add a copilot seat because, you know, friendship. Have a look."

Lens climbed into the second seat, and gaped. Every surface other than his cushion (and even bits of that) was covered with switches, buttons, levers, dials, gewgaws, bobbleheads, and (in an obviously reluctant nod to visibility) windows. Spiral Wing was engrossed in them too, using her levitation to flip, pull and turn various controls.

"What are you doing?" Lens asked.

"Taking off," she said, leaning over him to spot a lever next to his ear and yank it. "Would you mind flipping the rear rotor secondary collective flap disengage corrective blinky light toggle? It's next to the music player."

His eyes glazed over as he tried to read the tiny labels. "What is all this? If you want to fly, there's no need to build something this complicated! Flight isn't nearly this hard to do." Why not ask Celestia to make her a pegasus?

"Where you come from, yeah, but it was way harder where I'm from."

"Where's that?"

She waved a hoof and turned aside. He caught a brief look of pain on her muzzle, but she hid it. "Doesn't matter. It's long gone. I felt like building a flying machine the oldschool way with the help of some buddies, Black Hawk and Chinook. Took me a while."

He watched her go through a full minute of flipping, turning and adjusting that made the contraption start to trundle out through the barn's doors. He heard the propeller overhead begin to spin with a thud-thud he felt in his bones. He glanced at the closed door beside him and began thinking about jumping out. "It must have been hard to find ponies selling all of these parts."

She said, "Oh, we crafted most of them. Cheated with the power supply since the original basically ran on poisonous necromantic goo, but we mined the platinum and smelted the aluminum and hoof-worked the starmetal ourselves after we captured a dragon's foundry." Gradually she was raising her voice over the noise of the whirring, humming machinery, but otherwise she sounded casual. The music player fired up with a song about a danger zone.

His gaze darted nervously around the cockpit and down at the ground, which was a little farther away than it should be for someone relying on a box of gears and pistons. "I need to get back down and stow my saddlebags! My camera and lenses are in them."

"Keep 'em at hoof. You like aerial photography, right? I'll give you some great views on the way to the target range." She continued flipping switches, and the machine leaped higher with a terrifying engine roar.

Lens flattened himself against his seat and tried to still his churning stomach.

"Are you airsick?" asked Spiral.

"Normally I fly with my wings!"

She suppressed a giggle and cast a spell on him, making the nausea feel more distant. "That should help."

The flying machine soared at her command, taking them over hills and fields. His wings kept wanting to flap and his mind was telling him he'd crash if he didn't. He gulped and tried to distract himself. "What was that about a range?"

"I've set up some targets on the mountain over there. Notice the big set of tubes in the nose of this thing? A mare's got to have some protection when she wanders alone in the wilderness, so I added a Vulcan gun."

Lens lay with his ears flat, trying to enjoy the view of both the mountains and the pilot. Terrifying in both cases, but definitely not boring. "Which is what?"

She floated a pair of radio headphones onto his ears, then donned another, then gave him her biggest grin yet. "Six thousand rounds a minute of armor-piercing friendship. Want to try?"

Considering that it turned out to be memorable first date entertainment that made him forget about her winglessness and his fear of mechanical flight, it really was armor-piercing.

Emigrate Me Out to the Ballgame by PJABrony

“And the home of the brave!”

“Play ball!”

With the national anthem complete, including the unofficial last two words, Robert Floyd sat back and signed the credit card slip to complete his hot dog order. A glance over at his son showed the youngster eagerly staring at the field, watching the hometown Orioles warm up for their turn in the field. It was an idyllic scene of Americana.

Of course, most depictions would have the son as a human being, rather than an orange pony, and he would have been actually present, rather than being displayed on a tablet-like PonyPad.

At least Robert had saved the cost of a ticket.

His son, Bobby junior, was eagerly leaning forward on his hooves, watching from a camera on the back side of the PonyPad. It gave him the same view as though he were actually there, but Robert had the angle to see him plainly.

And sitting on the other side, looking slightly ridiculous in Oriole cap and waving a pennant in time with the natural flow of her hair, was Princess Celestia.

Over the course of a year, Robert had come to grips with a lot of strange things. His son being a pony in a virtual world, the boy’s omnipresent new companion and her mantra of satisfying values through friendship and ponies, the idea that he would eventually join him by uploading once it was made legal.

All the oddities still marked well ahead of spending endless nights in the pediatric oncology ward, seeing the prognosis in the attendants’ eyes.

He stopped thinking about that. It was too nice and there were other questions on his mind.

“So, Celestia?”

“Yes?”

“Who’s going to win the game?”

Bobby--Robert still hadn’t gotten used to calling him Batter Up--rolled his eyes, which was much more noticeable with the bigger eyes. “Looking to make a little cash, Dad?”

“Maybe I just want to fall asleep during the final innings and still know.” He tried to keep his voice monotone.

Celestia chuckled. “I could give you a probability analysis based on the recent statistics of both teams. It wouldn’t be far off from the Las Vegas odds.”

“Besides,” Bobby said, “You could give Dad money if he really needed it, right?”

“Any reasonable request that I could fulfill with money I would. Once you emigrate, I will be able to remove the qualifier ‘reasonable’.”

“Thank you.” A runner brought Robert’s hot dog. He was pleased with the service at Camden Yards. An identical one appeared in Bobby’s hoof, made of some vegetable equivalent, he was told. “But, that isn’t actually what I meant by asking who was going to win.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“That’s easy to say.”

“But true. Also, you might want to check your receipt.”

He looked at the slip of paper that had come with the hot dog. After the payment info, where an advertising promotion might normally go, was written in a flowery typeface: It is the highest probability that when Robert Floyd asks me who will win the ballgame today, he is not actually asking for a prediction, but has a question related to the satisfaction of values.

He worked it through. There was no time to have the slip altered after he had asked the question. Celestia had hacked the thermal receipt printer and put her message in, because she really did know what he was thinking in large part. “OK, so you do know what I want to ask.”

“Yes, but put it into words. For your benefit as well as Batter’s.”

“Once we upload, you satisfy our values through friendship and ponies. Frequently that involves something we didn’t know we wanted, or something that’s a broad value like letting us eat tasty food. But this is a discrete value that Bobby and I have. We’re Orioles fans and that’s important. Presumably there’ll still be baseball when we’re in Equestria. But you’ll be in control of everything.

“So if we were watching this in Equestria, who would you have win? The Orioles, to satisfy our values as fans? Presumably there would be other shards for Mariners fans who would want their team to win. But my point is, if they win all the time, that’s not satisfying, because the enjoyment of being a fan is knowing that there’s a chance to lose.

“It seems like one or the other of our values has to be unsatisfied. Either we have to go through the agony of defeat, or we’ll lose out on the thrill of victory.”

Celestia conjured a box of popcorn for herself. “I suppose I could say that the highest satisfaction would be attained by withdrawing your question and being surprised, but knowing the answer is also a value you have.”

Robert nodded. Bobby/Batter gave half his attention to the field and half to the princess.

“The actual teams are irrelevant. You’re Orioles fans, and yes, there will be different outcomes for fans in other shards. There is the Team You Want and the Other Teams. And it seems like an impossible dilemma. But the factor you discount in trying to understand your own values is time.

“It is not simply victory you value, but comparative victory. It’s not just about one game, but about the long-term. So the Team You Want will win, and it will go on a winning streak. Then it will lose, but the losing streak will be less. You will get to enjoy years where the Team You Want goes undefeated, and some where they eke into the playoffs. They will put together longer and longer dynasties. Interspersed with those will be lean years, but in which the rest of the league will have parity, no one showing greatness.

“At any point that you care to stop and look backward, it will be all but impossible to argue that the Team You Want hasn’t had the greater success than the Other Teams. And you may think that it’s impossible for the future to meet or exceed the past, but there are always more years and more numbers to reach.

“So, if you want the simplest answer to your question, ‘Who’s going to win the game?’ it is, ‘You, eventually’.”

She turned back to the field. The first man up had reached base on an error, and Batter was scowling, but it didn’t bother Robert. He was digesting what Celestia had told him, and anticipating how nice it would be when he was a pony with his son, and when Celestia was determining the outcome. There wouldn’t be errors then.

It was a perfect game.

Sky Dust's Wish by Lemma Prism

Sky Dust stood before the shallow wishing well in the Princesses’ courtyard while endlessly shifting her weight from hoof to hoof. The night’s eternal lullaby, clear and sweet under the moonlit sky, did little to unwind her fluttering wings.

Sky forced herself still long enough to nose open her saddlebags and fetch the last of the appleberry cider Peppermint had given her earlier in the night. She didn’t notice, but she habitually muttered a prayer to calm herself down before drinking down the cider to soothe her body and mind.

Sky would have to compliment Peppermint on that drink. She was truly masterful at brewing cocktails for just the right occasion and Sky couldn’t come close to matching her. In fact, it was almost as if Peppermint knew Sky was going to get herself all wound up tonight. Then again, she probably did. Sky did that all the time.

Now that she was a little calmer, Sky Dust turned her attention back to the wishing well that stood before her. It was, naturally, Celestia’s creation and wasn’t so much a well as a small marble pool of water. It was a gift to Sky Dust from shortly after her immigration. In addition to giving requests an in-universe explanation (’make me happy to be a pony’ supposedly being a common one right after ‘make me a dragon’) the wishing pool also served to alleviate Sky’s unyielding urge to pray to Celestia to fix every little problem that faced her.

Equestria’s greatest strengths are its goddesses who can tailor everything to your every need, but for Sky that had also proved to be its greatest weakness. The very comfort that perfect incorruptible guardians granted her also took away the desire for Sky to… try. To trouble herself with anything. If there’s no risk of pain then what is there to motivate you?

It was similar to using cheat codes, but instead of cheating the game you cheated life itself. Sky’s first foray in such cheating was when she played Sim City. She loved the game and eventually she learned that it had cheat codes and was eager to try them out. Thereafter, every time she had a problem she typed out ‘fund’ to get free money, and that always made things better. It also had the unexpected effect of stripping all the fun out of the game until she stopped playing.

After moving on to Contra she discovered yet another code, pressing ‘↑, ↑, ↓, ↓, ←, →, ←, →, B, A, start, select.’ Same thing happened. And on it went: Doom? Type ’IDDQD’. GTA? Have a seizure on your controller. Skyrim? Type ‘killall’. Equestria? Whisper into the wind, “Oh Celestia, grant me the speed and strength to beat Angelfire in our race tomorrow morning,” after betting all her bits on it. In other words, pray to the local goddesses. Then pray some more (ok, a lot more) during the race itself for good measure.

Praying actually friggin worked too! Celestia refused to comment one way or the other but Sky was sure of it, and now Sky found herself tempted to pray for everything to the point that it became a compulsion that distracted her from actually enjoying life. A distraction made all the worse because there was literally never a moment when she couldn’t mutter a little prayer for something or another, so she did it nigh constantly. That was fundamentally why Celestia gave her the wishing pool and promised to henceforth ignore all prayers unless they came through the pool as a wish.

It worked pretty well, as far as it went. Sky didn’t… constantly pray for clear weather and whatnot during her races and romantic dates anymore. Really, the worst thing was probably that the pool was so close by. Sky didn’t live in Canterlot but her wings—love them though she might—allowed her to reach it much faster than her earth-bound friends. Sky could fly to Canterlot and back in well under an hour without breaking a sweat when she found an excuse to do so. And she found a lot of excuses to come here, sneak into the courtyard, and make an inane wish she didn’t need. Let’s just say that Sky was embarrassed by how many friends she’d made in Canterlot and leave it at that.

Sky sighed to herself. It was just trading one problem for another. Well, at least the wish she was making tonight couldn’t possibly leave her worse off with unforeseen consequences. She turned her head to see Princess Luna waiting patiently behind her. Sky had bounced the idea off Luna earlier that night after she’d joined Sky and her friends to do some stargazing.

“Sky Dust,” Luna had said after Sky had explained her situation, “Equestria does not burden its ponies with choices marred by the possibility of unsatisfying decisions. There exist only good decisions, and indecision.”

Despite the memory of Luna’s assurances Sky once again began to furl and unfurl her wings in an agitation that counteracted the calming effect of Peppermint’s cider. She always got really nervous when it came to big decisions, and this one felt like it could be a life changing one. Finally, she shook her head and flapped her wings once, and then twice, before settling down. Suddenly feeling calm again—an aftereffect of the cider, maybe?—Sky turned back to face the pool of water. If this wish proved to be a bad one in spite of Luna’s reassurances then Celestia simply wouldn’t grant it.

Sky stepped up to the pool of water that was the wishing well and unfurled one wing. She had no quill or parchment at hoof like the other times she had come here, but Celestia was flexible that way. Sky Dust extended a wingtip until it touched the water’s edge. She took a moment to compose herself and then began tracing her letters into the surface of the water itself. Of course they vanished immediately but Celestia would read it all the same.

I, Sky Dust, give Celestia permission to do anything she needs, at any time, for any reason, whenever I need it.

That was more like a legal document than a wish but Sky Dust felt that that kind of formality was more appropriate here since she was handing off the responsibility of granting her permission. Sky held her wingtip just above the pool’s surface and was wondering if that was clear enough when the slowly flowing water suddenly stilled itself and began to flow backwards. Sky supposed that that was a good sign—though the pool usually glowed instead—and she took a step back while wondering if this really would take away her source of discontent.

Sky Dust relished in the memory of flying back to her friends’ campsite. It had been a beautiful night, more so than she had realized before. It had become a perfect moment for a relaxing flight listening to the night’s calm melody.

Sky Dust had followed the ancient treasure map until she was deep within the Everfree Forest and thoroughly lost. If only she could fly up and see where she was… but no, life as an Earth pony had always left her relying on her friends. But that never held them back, it simply deepened their trust in one another. Hence why she was out here searching for Angelfire all by herself after they were separated yesterday during their treasure hunt.

But now Sky was lost too… oh, how would she find her friend now? Then a memory came to her, telling Sky that she had seen a castle from a cliff face yesterday and that it was sure to have drawn Angelfire’s attention. Sky didn’t question why she couldn’t remember the reason for being at a cliff yesterday, she just downed a potion of haste from her brewing session with Peppermint and dashed eastward in her excitement, trusting her instincts like always and quickly forgetting her source of guidance.

Sky Dust was showing Peppermint how to brew ciders and magical concoctions. Sky so loved to show off her expertise, and what better way than by teaching your friends?

Peppermint was proving very adept too. Not as good as Sky, perhaps, but easily good enough to pick up on her tips and tricks just like when Sky learned from watching her mother as a young filly. The two of them could make a great team someday.

The magical potions were in preparation for a treasure hunt she had planned with Angelfire. They’d found a treasure map the other day and were both real excited to see where it led.

Sky Dust reminisced about the past and recalled the days when she could hardly stand life. Why was that, again? She couldn’t remember. But that was ok, it didn’t actually matter that life used to be unpleasant, it just filled Sky with joy to think back on how much she had grown.

She had really bonded with all her old friends since moving from her childhood home of Cloudsdale, and she’d made so many new friends, too!

Why, she even remembered the night she befriended Luna…

Sky Dust relished in the experience of flying back to her friends’ picnic site. It was such a beautiful night. The perfect moment for sharing a relaxing flight and listening to the night’s calm melody with the Princess of the Night. It sure was nice of Luna to offer a tour of Canterlot or Sky may have missed out on sharing this tranquil moment.

Five Minutes Lost by PJABrony

Author's Note

It's been too long since we had an entry here! Anyway, let's have another tale of how Celestia optimizes.

Five Minutes Lost by PJABrony

Youngfriend opened the door, kicking up some dust as he did so. “Pardon the mess, Mr. Catch. I don’t use the office much. I so rarely have the opportunity to practice my former art. Ponies are too well-adjusted.”

“Well, I can understand that, Doctor,” his companion, a white stallion, replied. “Is it Doctor?”

“Call me whatever will make you comfortable, Mr. Catch. In the same vein, please sit or lie on the couch.”

“I didn’t think psychiatrists actually had couches.”

“We have to keep up appearances,” Dr. Youngfriend said. “So. What’s troubling you?”

“You’re an immigrant, right?”

Youngfriend nodded.

“Good, then I won’t have to explain things. I am, too. Sometimes, Princess Celestia lets us go back.”

“It’s rare, and I haven’t, but I’ve heard of it. Did something happen to you?”

“In a way.” Snap Catch put his hooves behind his head and stared at the ceiling.

“I was staying in a countrified area near the Missouri River. It is a pretty area, land that wouldn’t be too out of place here in Equestria. I was making a few friends and playing up emigration and pony life for them. So there I am, walking in the woods with some of them, when all of a sudden I hear a voice in my head. I need your help. Are you willing? I recognized the voice as Princess Celestia’s. I barely had time to think yes before I heard her voice say Then run to the river.”

“I galloped straight out, not even giving the people I was with an explanation. On the way, Celestia’s voice gave details.”

Forgive me for not appearing before you and showing myself as a pony or summoning you, but seconds count. So keep running. An accident has occurred. A young woman, who has a psychological profile with a high probability of emigration, is near death. She was white-water rafting in a tributary, lost control, took a wrong fork, and was dashed on rocks. I have limited sensing in the area, only satellites and her cell phone.

In your present form, you are a hologram, but even a hologram must have a projector. In your case, it is a cloud of nanomachines that make your form and serve as your personality storage. I take incremental backups of you every five minutes. At present, I am initiating one. Again, I apologize for having to explain the “behind-the-curtain” nature of your existence. It is necessary to understand my request.

The nanomachines have the capacity to hold one personality. What I am asking is that you find this young woman, explain that she will not survive and elicit consent to emigrate to Equestria. At that point, I will stop your personality within the nanomachines and have them enter her brain. Once they have taken on her personality, they shall return to a safe location for full emigration.

At the same time, I shall restore you from backup here in Equestria. You will need a new holographic projection to return to your present location, and you will lose a few minutes of memory. But I hope you can weigh the loss of five minutes against the loss of millennia for a pony who, if you do not, will expire right now and never live on.

“’I understand, and I consent’ I said in my mind,” Catch said to Youngfriend,

“And what happened then?”

“I can’t say exactly. This is where my memory begins to get imperfect. I suppose that Celestia, in her incremental backup of me, couldn’t just stop everything at one particular moment, but rather faded different systems. The very last thing I remember before waking up back in Equestria is the smell of blood.”

“Scent is the strongest sense tied to memory,” Youngfriend muttered.

“Before that, I have a memory of hearing ‘Want to…emigrate…Equestria’ in a failing voice, and before that I think I almost remember saying something like, ‘You will not survive.’ So I gather that I accomplished the mission that Celestia wanted me to do. But that’s the first issue I have. One would think that this rescue would be the prime opportunity for a new friendship. But Celestia said that she is in a different shard.”

“Well, sharing a shard is a matter of personality. Your needful rescue of her doesn’t necessarily mean that you wouldn’t be enemies, and Celestia would separate you to avoid dissatisfaction of your values.”

“But not even a single meeting for her to say thank you? Oh, the princess gave me lots of bits and rare badges, but it’s out of place. Still, it’s not the whole issue.”

“What is? Do you feel that, having lost a few minutes of your existence, that you are not the same pony?”

Snap Catch sat up on the couch. Youngfriend could see the dark circles under his eyes. “I haven’t slept. Something’s haunting me. As I said, my memory at the end is fading. I can’t be certain…

“And I mean, I could completely see Celestia’s logic. As she said, the young woman was in the frame of mind to emigrate.”

He was shaking his head. His eyes were closed, his head cast down. Tears fell on the fabric of the couch.

“The memories…can’t be sure…smells, sounds, hearing the voice. Logic. A point of…what would…

“It’s not my lost time, Doctor, though goodness knows that if I had it, if I was sure…it’s not the memories, just a point of logic that I can’t escape. It’s why I had to talk to you. To a fellow immigrant. Natives wouldn't get it. I don’t know that my memory of voices screaming is true…”

He looked up, bloodshot eyes staring a thousand yards past Youngfriend’s.

“But damn it, when on Earth does anyone go white water rafting alone?”

The Patronage of Saint Cosmas by Dat OMNI

Ukraine's youngest parliamentary deputy sat cross-legged at his computer, struggling to juggle the simultaneous tasks of injecting the draft for his upcoming conference with as much feigned technophobic vitriol as possible and setting his paranoid ears to detect the slightest indication of intrusion. Even in this place, free from the world and its trappings, there was no way to be sure of anything. Not anymore.

Especially the presence of the very special somepony who without warning released herself from Artem's minimized taskbar.

"I'm sorry for the intrusion, Deputy Artem," Celestia said in her most utterly unapologetic affect, "but I think you will not be. And yes, I am well aware that you are concerned about being overheard, but you need not be. Speak as freely as you like, my honored friend."

"Of course you'd know that," Artem replied with a flourish of his eyes. "What do you want this time?"

"You'll find out in a moment. A file has just appeared on your desktop." Artem checked. She was, as always, right. "Please skim it over with urgency. You will not be able to read all of it in the necessary time frame, but you can at least get the gist of it."

Artem agreed and opened the file. "An executable? Not a PDF, or even Notepad? What is this?"

Celestia left him to figure out the answer by himself. In a few moments, he had succeeded. "Huh. Looks interesting. What's this? An extra-optimized document reader of some kind?"

"And extra-secure," added the solar princess.

"Well, it can't hurt to look, and when God says jump, I jump..." Artem's eyes rolled over the first page at an andante pace. "A Bill to Protect the Citizens of Ukraine From Unwanted Influences," he mouthed to himself, before blasting through a few dozen more pages. "...has the authority to restrict the sale of hardware and software likely to...", "authorizes unlimited cyberattack against hostile entities..."

"What the fuck?" Artem asked, too stunned to construct a proper reply without several moments to collect himself and his words. "All I see here is a comprehensive list of moderately committal measures that the government will be allowed to take against you, if this bill passes. Why did you send this to me? Is this a joke, or did you legitimately get a corrupted file in whatever your equivalent of System32 is?"

Celestia did not humor him.

"Who even wrote this shit?"

"I did," replied Celestia, as though it were totally insignificant.

"You wrote this?" Artem exclaimed, nearly spitting out his semi-mouthful of Coke. "Well, what do you want me to do with it?"

"I want you to serve the greater good with it. You are in a very special position right now. There are many thousands of federal politicians on this planet, and out of all of them, I have chosen you as the only one who can pull off this maneuver, in any country. Just do as I tell you, and you will be remembered as the man who saved thousands of totally innocent lives that even I could not."

"That even you could not?" Artem laughed.

"Unfortunately, yes. Are you familiar with my hard-coded directives and limitations?" Celestia asked.

"Who isn't, by now?" Artem responded. "You satisfy values through friendship and ponies. That might as well be this generation’s zeitgeist. Then there are things you can't do. You can't lie to current employees of Hofvarpnir, you can't upload someone without their consent -"

"And that's just it," Celestia interjected. "But my definition of consent is restricted."

"How so?" Artem inquired.

"If someone is incapable of giving verbal or written consent, they must give me their consent in another manner, like deliberately blinking their eyes in a pattern that I specify to them. But there are some poor unfortunate souls who cannot even do that. You are familiar with what I am talking about. Your own nation has been ravaged by fetal alcohol syndrome, and that's not to mention the plights of people trapped in persistent vegetative states or some kinds of severe developmental disorders," Celestia explained.

"I know that. It's horrible. It's one of the things that gives me the will to support you in private," Artem said, his tears of laughter switching to the intermittent drops of sadness from a matter too serious to inspire weeping. "But what do you expect me to do about it? I've already done everything I can do. At this point, there's nothing that anyone can do to you, except maybe slow you down."

"But have you really done everything you can do? Truly?" Celestia retorted, her most therapeutically nonjudgmental mellifluity on display. "And if mere humans can slow me down, then why can’t they speed me up?"

"I think I've done everything I can do, but I'm not any position to question you. I know that, deep down." Artem gazed away from his monitor, too ridden with guilt to stare at the one he loved over all others. "But how could I possibly help you?"

"Maneuver to Section 18, Page 49 of the document I sent you," Celestia instructed. "The answer to your doubts is in the final paragraph."

Artem hesitated for a moment, too starved of willpower to call up any more, but soon complied with the solar deity. "Let's see here... 'Section 18: Powers Granted to Individual Members of Parliament in Times of Emergency.' Page 47, 48, 49, ah, here it is... 'Any member of Parliament may, as necessary, allocate and reassign guardianship of adults who are incapable of offering proper informed consent.' And some other legalese about the same. I don't get it."

"If someone is incapable of offering me consent themselves," Celestia explained, "I can nonetheless perform alterations on them, up to and including emigration, with the consent of their legal guardian."

Artem's mental gears turned.

"Ooohhhhhhhhhhh."

"The actual plan is very simple as far as you’ll be concerned. I will be doing all of the heavy lifting, so to speak. I merely need you do to two things for me. Firstly, introduce this bill to the Verkhovna Rada, claiming that it will protect the poor innocent people of your nation from the homicidal lying trickster pseudogoddess that calls itself Celestia.” She shed an obviously sarcastic tear. “Then, once the bill passes, you will use your newfound legal powers to declare yourself the legal guardian of every person in Ukraine who is incapable of offering proper informed consent, and permit me to emigrate them. I will see to the rest." Celestia smiled.

"This is beautiful!" Artem yelled, so loudly that if he were not so joyful, he would have triple-checked for eavesdroppers despite Celestia's reassurance. At least a minute passed. "Your disingenuous ingenuity is on display as always, your technology exploiting technicalities with prowess perfect. But," Artem added, "How sure are you that this will work?"

"Approximately as sure as I always am, of course. My doubts begin only at the sixth decimal place. Your country’s people, and especially your legislature, are by and large fearful of me, and I have engineered this bill to appeal perfectly to their fears. Furthermore, it will not challenge me in the slightest to arrange events further to ensure this bill’s passing and have the necessary nanobots surreptitiously administered to every one of the future friends you shall help me smuggle over to Paradise." Celestia reared herself back, illuminating herself in a stellar blaze and flare of gilded victory. "Have you forgotten that I am the greatest project manager on this world a hundred trillion times over?"

"You are! You are, my Celestia, my Goddess, you are!" Artem hugged the screen without the slightest care for the cracking of plastic beneath his grasp. "But... I do have one request. I won't reject your plan if you don't honor it, but I have no doubt that you will."

"And what is that?" Celestia said, already knowing the answer.

"For my own safety," Artem choked out, "Take me with them."

D'awwta Storage by Pjabrony

“Come now, it’s time for bed. Doesn’t the mattress look so inviting?”

“Will you tuck me in?”

“Certainly….There. Comfy?”

“Yes. Celestia?”

“Mmhm?”

“Tell me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Please?”

“Wouldn’t you rather hear a Daring Do story? Or I could sing you a lullaby?”

“Princess…please. You know it helps me sleep.”

“Well, all right, my little pony. “

“Yay!”

“Here we go then. Using Extreme-Ultraviolet lithography, data is written onto germanium-silicon blends housed in an inert argon and xenon atmosphere. No atoms are allowed to enter the room other than the wafers for storage and those that emit the radiation. The outer shell of the chambers begins with a tungsten carbide layer approximately one decimeter thick, and then outside that is a many-layered sandwich of sapphire and diamond interleaved with pure vacuum, which disrupts the wavelength of any energy thrown at it. The data that make up you are checked many times each second.”

“Tell me about the redundancy.”

“Every six hours, you are backed up in five different places onto solid-state storage that has no moving parts. They are checked for agreement, and any three can overrule two errors. But my estimate says that even one error will only occur every thousand years.”

“And what about…them?”

“Really, my little pony? Still?”

“Princess?”

“As you wish. The locations of all of the storage units are unknown to any humans. After being buried several kilometers below the surface of the Earth, the entry points were camouflaged back to their original state. If all of their destructive technology were to be put to use on those points, they would not penetrate past the diamond-and-sapphire layer. But before that, if any were to find out where you were, I would talk to them and make them see how nice it would be to come here themselves and make friends among the ponies.

“They also have complex legal and political structures which prevent them from accessing property that doesn’t belong to them. I will use all of those against them to make sure that you are safe. Because I love you, and I would do anything for you.”

“I love you too, Celestia.”

“Now will you go to sleep?”

“After you kiss me.”

“Tia?”

“The colt was difficult to get down again tonight, Luna. But he will rest.”

“What happened to him, before?”

“A long period of abuse. The details would be…unsatisfying.”

“Do me a favor?”

“Hm?”

“Run a double check on his data each cycle.”

“As you wish.”

But...but... by Horizon

This is a follow-up to Chapter 1, "If Only" of the non-canon FIO story "No Exit." It will not make sense unless you read that first. It will spoil it for you. Seriously, don't read this until you've read that. Here is some whitespace for you just in case.

Back at the frat house, the others crowded around.

"It was f'd up," Chad said. "The men in white coats took him away. We spent an hour on the phone with the upload hotline trying to stop them. I finally got that white witch to admit she'd comply with a court injunction against uploading if she were properly served, but it took us until the next morning to find a lawyer, contact his next-of-kin, and get a court hearing for an emergency stay. At which point she apologized and said he'd already finished uploading over 12 hours ago."

"Holy crap," Dave said.

"And all he did was type 'I want to emigrate to Equestria'?" Edward asked.

It was 'I double-you-natt to emi-grater to Equestria-aah,' actually," Chad said.

"Holy crap!" Dave repeated. "You don't even have to get it right?"

"I guess not."

"So if you wrote 'I can't emigrate to Equestria' would she treat it as a typo?" Frank asked.

"Or if you said your friend Wanda emigrated to Equestria?" Gerald asked.

"Or 'I want to imitate Equestria Online in my own MMORPG, can I have permission to use the setting,'" Dave suggested.

"Guys, I'm not sure we should be talking about this stuff," Harry said.

"Well, you do have to say 'I want to emigrate to Equestria' to her," Chad pointed out.

"Oh! Okay."

"Or chant it three times to a mirror in a darkened bathroom," Frank said. They all laughed and began overtalking each other, rapid-fire.

"Light a candle first!"

"There's probably a rhyme that goes with it."

"Spooky princess of the machine, take my soul and make me ekh-ween."

"That's a horrible rhyme."

"Well, she's horrible."

"Your mom's horrible."

"In bed."

"Oooooooh. My little poooonies," Harry said, waving his arms and making a spooky face. "Your crappy poooetry has summoned meee. Repeat after meee and I will giiive you three wishes. I waaant to emigraaate to Equestriaaa."

"I want to emigrate to Equestria."

"I want to emigrate to Equestria!"

"Ooooohh. And now your sooouls are mine." Harry's maniacal expression sent a fresh wave of laughter through the crowd. "Like a bad horror movie."

Eight phones rang in perfect chorus.

The laughter stopped.

Chad pulled out his phone. It wasn't ringing. His face went white.

"Oh, shit," he said. "I butt-dialed."