the sisterhooves social network

Nexel wakes with a start. It isn't the classic wake-up-screaming-into-the-camera movie scenario, just a small shock and then awake, staring at his ceiling. What had he just dreamed? It was hard to remember; the details had already began to blur, but not quick enough to elude Nexel's mind. A strange woman, an annoyed bartender, a wolf-like monster... It slowly comes back to him as sits up in his bed. Like most ponies, he firsts thinks it wasn't a dream. It always feels the most real just after first waking up. But then he considered the facts: last night he did not go to party after his receiving the Award, he remembers coming straight back here to his dorm room and falling asleep instantly. There were no parties, no strange women, no horrible attempts at flirting--Thank Celestia. It must have been a dream. He shakes the realness of it after coming to this conclusion and gets out of bed.

Nexel lights up his horn with its usual pastel golden flame in order to grab his basket of shower trinkets that he uses in the communal bathrooms. Walking out of his dorm room and magically shutting the door behind him, he walks the 20 some feet to the bathroom rather exhausted. Before getting in the shower, he gives a quick yawn and smells his own breath. He made a mental note that he would need to brush his teeth today.

The warm water feels good on his sticky coat, crusted from a thin layer of sweat he must have perspired during that nightmare. He cranes he neck into the stream that showers down on him from the angled fixture and runs the water through his short, curly mane. Stepping out of the shower, he shakes loose from his body most of the water that adhered to his fur. Nexel then takes his basket swiftly to the sinks, already feeling more alive and awake. He brushes his teeth hastily, this not being one of his favorite past-times, as wells as figuring he wouldn't be seeing anypony too important today so it did really matter. Then, after a solid fifteen minutes of Nexel checking himself out in the mirror--an activity that was only put an end when another colt walked in to take a shower--he heads back to his room with a bit more spring in his step than when he arrived.

When back in his room, Nexel begins his normal day of coding. Loging on to his personal computer, he enters his own digitally crafted world where he finds himself king. That's the feeling Nexel loves the most about the Network, as he calls it, the fact that he basically owns it. Currently, the only thing anypony could do on the Network was create a profile for their friends to see and interact with, although Nexel recognized the true capacity of the Network to expand beyond sharing your personal life with other ponies.

Nexel pauses for a moment to levitate a half-drank alcoholic cider can to his lips and sips the lukewarm liquid. No more froth, it's not too tasty. That's what happens when you let it sit out for a day, he thinks to himself. But no sense in wasting it. He downs the rest. He chucks the can away towards the waste bin; it rebounds off the rim with a sharp clang.

His gaze remains straight ahead at the screen before him, tapping away on the two keys on the prototype keyboard he designed and built himself. Depending on the order of the pressed keys, he can navigate the on-screen display and create every character in the Equestrian language. After the fairly recent invention of a magic-to-usable-energy conversion mechanism--a device that the corporate advertising departments had so astutely christened the MAJENER--the main obstacle to overcome in Nexle's design of the first personal, consumable computer was the reconciliation of the size restrictions of the machine with the necessary size of the physical keys that could be pressed by the average hoof. Nexel's design, he thought, was both efficient and poetic: the two options available to the user mirrored the two options available to the computer in its own native language. Soon after he had began building a prototype for this design, another helpful invention was announced: a means by which magic could be harvested from Pegasi and Earth Ponies alike. It seems the magic that unicorns have at their disposal is not unique to them, only the ability to manipulate it is. In fact, it is inherent in all ponies. This was first theorized by Starswirl the Bearded in his paper where he discussed the implications of measurements of certain Pegasi' flight speeds that seemed to exceed their physical potential and similar measurements of certain Earth Ponies' strength. It has been a long time coming, but apparently researchers at Nexel's own University of Canterlot cracked the puzzle and figured out how to tap into this Latent Magic. This made Nexel's design even more viable as it could now technically be used by a pony of any breed.

The hardware was the easiest part of the entire project, computer theory had been around for quite a while, first discussed by Ada Lovesnout and perfected by Alan Trotting, but had only really manifested in rudimentary game systems and foal science fair projects. There wasn't anypony who had the vision or the know-how needed to create the first generation personal computers. Nopony until Nexel Diode, of course. This past year, Nexel's second year at university, was spent creating the foundations of the Network.

Nexel hated to leave the personal computer hanging, nothing for it to do besides to create, edit and delete files. What else could he do with these computers? Looking over the published paper on the inherent magic of ponies, he noticed something in the math, a connection. A connection could be established between the magic at the center of separate ponies that could facilitate information exchange. This could be harnessed to become the pathways that these new computers could talk to each other on. Nexel immediately began working on a second computer to test the connection on and discovered the ease with which these pathways could be manipulated. He created a way by which ponies could make files on their own computers that could be sent to or accessed by other ponies. Nexel imagined a vast network of future computers and future user ponies that would connect even the furthest regions of Equestrian with near instant communication. This beautiful thought became the basis of the Network. Some patents, business deals and debugging later, Nexel was ready to tell the world about his invention. That is what he did last night, and already the first 100 systems created before the announcement had been sold.

Nexel sits back in his desk chair to admire his latest and greatest work: a way for ponies to write down and share their experiences to be viewed by other ponies that they chose. It was a new way to be social, a revolution. Nexel smiles to himself as the door behind him opens. A round, stout pegasi with a light green coat and a jet-black, long, slightly curly mane and tail combo enters the room. This is Nexel Diode's room mate and was "User2" on most of the preliminary Network tests, Amien Seule. Nexel swivels around his chair, his face still tracking his computer screen and his hooves taping away the finishing touches on his code before pulling his attention away from his computer and focusing on his room mate.

"Dude," Amien begins, as he did most conversions, "I thought you were dead!"

"What?" Nexel replies confused. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembers the ending of his dream from the previous night.

"You were out like a brick this morning: mouth open, drool flowing and snoring like a tractor. I was surprised you weren't up before me, I mean, you usually are," he says fully walking in and setting his groceries on the small table in the corner. He uses his left wing to close the door behind him and faces Nexel waiting for his reply.

Nexel realizes he was just staring at Amien and not conversing so he stammers out while rubbing an eye with a hoof, "Yeah, um, I had a weird dream."

"Sweet dude. Naked chicks kind of weird, or...?" he asks a little too hopefully.

"Uh...no, not--uh--not that type of weird, no." Nexel comes back a little uncomfortable.

Amien either takes this as a yes or tries to have fun with Nexel and replies, "S'alright, brah, your wildest fantasies are safe with me."

Nexel brushes this off with a small smile. "What did you get?" he asks gesturing with a hoof toward the full saddle-bag Amien dumped on the table.

"Oh," he says, turning to unpack the bag, "Just some stuff to hold us over." He says this as he pulls two twelve packs of alcoholic cider out of the bag and places them in the mini-fridge under the table.

"Oh, yes please, can you hoof me one now?" Nexel asks. Amien gives him a sidelong, raised eye-brow look.

"It's still before ten. That's real classy, Nexel," he says while tossing Nexel a can.

"I seem to recall someone vomiting all over this carpet at around nine AM last St. Paddock's Day." Nexel rebuttals.

"Touché."

Amien was from Cloudsdale, not many other places a pegasus could be from though, is there? His parents wanted him to attend flight school to prepare him for the Flying Corps, supposedly a family tradition. But that was never what Amien wanted. Ever since he had seen his first State of Equestria Address on TV, he had always wanted to do something in government. He came to UC to study Poly-Sci in the hopes of one day scoring an ambassadorship to one of Equestria's allies around the world. He and Nexel were paired as roommates their first year based on the nerdy hobbies they both enjoy. It's been smooth sailing ever since.

"So what, you're keeping these for posterity or for your massive ego?" Amien asks picking up a stack of newspapers from the table with Nexel's name in a big serif font on all the front pages.

"One of the two. But to be honest, I wish they had mentioned you more in all of those stories. I couldn't have beta-tested any of the Network without User2," Nexel jokes back in a sarcastic tone.

"Hey, now there's a reason you're user1 and I'm user2: you may be piss-pour at coding, but I'm straight shit," he said with a big grin. Nexel stares at Amien, who still sports a stupidly large grin, for almost a full fifteen seconds before answering, "I bet you're really proud to hav-"

"So proud!" Amien interrupts before breaking out in laughter at his sub-par excrement joke. Nexel begins to chuckle as he turns back to his computer to finish his code.