Portmaster

Report no.1

It was a disaster. We met in a middle-grade restaurant at the scheduled time. The mare appeared extremely timid and hardly spoke at all. I ordered gem encrusted cake for myself and she ordered hay fries. I tried to make a small talk, and then, as I tried to ask her about her job, she got extremely apologetic about all the missed deadlines. I assured her that she receives all the deserved punishments, and that she doesn't need to apologize any more. This got her in a very depressed mood, and she asked me not to request her to talk about her job any more. I asked her about hobbies, and she told me she picks tulip petals if there are any left after the cargo, dries them up, and folds them into various shapes. But when the sweeping time comes, they are all swept away with all trash from the quarters. She got very sad about that and apologetic about being sad. Then she tried to ask me about my hobbies. I talked about music, but she said they never have any music in the terminal. All the music she knows is from her foalhood memories, but since these memories are all fake, it doesn't really count.

After that she began crying again, then she apologized profusely and ran away. I must say the experience was most disconcerting, and while I realize she is merely a replicant, I found the simulated emotions extremely realistic.

Portmaster closed the file with the report, then pulled the scheduler application up and found Fern Leaf quickly. He picked her today's schedule and wiped it clean with one flick of his hoof. Then he pulled up the comms panel.

"Fern Leaf? I have a very important task for you today. You are to find a suitable place for new terminal crew quarters. It shouldn't be too far from the terminal, but with enough space so that everypony has at least a small room of their own. I assign two hundred bits per pony for raw materials and access to the printers, so you could print all the furniture and missing infrastructure. If there's anypony in the terminal whom you'd wish to have for a helper, get them to help you too. If you have any questions, now or later, don't hesitate to ask."

She stood there for a few seconds, looking around in panic.

"Uh.. but why me?"

"Do you know any pony better suited for that job?"

"Umm... for a fact..."

"Then pick them as your helper and pass leadership to them, if you deem that optimal."

"Thanks," she said meekly.

Portmaster observed for a while, as Fern found a tall, squint-eyed pegasus mare by the name Ikebana, and passed her missive. Soon the schedule of the two was blank, and they started on their way away from the terminal.

Then comms request came to life. It was Ikebana.

"Uh, excuse me, if I could disturb..."

"Of course."

"Can I poll funds from several ponies for a single bigger purchase?"

"Of course. What do you have in mind?"

"There is a food distribution duct, a rather wide corridor, running all around the station. It's used to distribute food to all of us, replicants, but it's used only by a short train, only three times a day. If we could purchase one general distribution rail car, and use it over the main rail to supply our equipment dispensers with food for us, we could scrap the food train, build partitions in the food distribution corridor and use it for living space. A main rail car is rather expensive, but it would leave us with a plenty of living space."

Portmaster pulled the plans down, and scanned them for a while. "Consider it done. You don't need to purchase that main rail car, I'm just assigning one for the task. Also... Hey, I like you, Ikebana. That leaves us with a free corridor running all the way around the station. Do you believe all replicants of the station would fit there?"

"Yes, I believe so! Oh Celestia!" she shouted in glee. "Whole two hundred bits per pony! I'm going to make the new living space so awesome!"

"Think of leaving them a small allowance for personal touches!"

"Of course! Let me get to work at once!"

"And Baton," he turned to me. "I'd be grateful if you could aid them, give them the hunch of just how much they are allowed to do. I'm giving you a proxy access to my Federal Bank of Draconia account, in case any other purchase would be useful. Or if you'd like to go shopping, or whatever you like." he winked.

Personally, I just watched Miss Dusty and the horror on her face. She spoke to Portmaster, trying to conceal her outrage. "It is not my business how you manage your personal funds, but just giving away two hundred bits per replicant for furniture and personal space? How can you justify such an expense!?"

"I have a very important lesson for you today. A lesson in value of the station equipment. Let us pull down some manifests..." he opened the documents. "I see you assigned monetary values to replicants. It's usually in range of one to four thousand bits, rarely more, often less, especially in case of the more deteriorated ones."

"Yes, these are reasonable estimates for the span between costs of purchase of brand new and parts value of one only good for incineration."

"Now, while I personally believe there is no price on replicant's life, I guess it will take you some time to accept such notion, so let me attach some new price tags."

Portmaster edited the fields. Ten million for a new one, twenty million for one reaching 'end-of-life'.

"This is ridiculous."

"Accept it as an axiom and you'll see efficiency rise of at least four percent."

"How?"

"Trust me."

"How is the value rising with the replicant aging?"

"Experience."

"What experience can they gain in these... machine jobs?"

"Currently none. We're working on this now. Now for your today's homework. Invite Fern Leaf later today for a walk in the gardens. You don't need to talk about anything."

"Do I have to? She is most... disheartening."

"We'll see about that."

* * *

Report no.2

I can't believe the childish glee of that mare when she ran through the grass and gazed at birds. She nibbled on the wild flowers and waded in water. At first I was taken aback by her behavior, but then I found it rather charming. She asked me for a swim in the pond. I refused but I found her swimming quite amusing. Later I got us two fresh apples, and I couldn't hold back my laughter at how ecstatic she was about the taste. She also showed me one of her tulip petal works. It was a small pink alicorn pony, without legs. She said it was Princess Cadence swimming, and yes, when placed on table, I had to admit the resemblance was uncanny. She gave the little figurine to me, and I was so taken by it, that I bought her a fresh tulip flower. We actually parted in excellent moods, and if my homeworks are to look like this, I am really looking forward to the next one.

"So, Baton, my faithful spy, how's the news?"

"Idiot," I muttered. "The news is good. I spent half a day looking for the right bar. This place simply has no cheap bars where replicants could come for a drink. You need to change that. But I got a room reserved at one in the less fashionable district and I spent Celestia knows how much cash on fetching the simple booze from Mars through express delivery, since all they have here are fancy wines and vintage liquors. Then I got a whole shift of the local cops down there and we spent the whole evening drinking and chatting."

"And?"

"And once the drinks flowed, I got to the core of the problem. The guys begged to get the armors refitted to fit their junk. It chafes them, then they get pissed about it, and then they take it out on whomever they can put their hooves on."

He laughed and turned to Miss Dusty. "There, our guard violence problem solved. No amount of you punishing them would help. Will you see to that?"

"Is it... really... that simple?" she muttered, her eyes wide open.

"It cost eighty thousand bits to discover this problem."

"Oh... but the amount..."

"Could be reduced by over ninety nine percent, I guess you know how."

"A bar that would accept replicants? But... Elysium has a certain... reputation to uphold."

"Guests don't need to know it exists. And those who learn, might find it... a welcome change of pace."

"I guess I might..." she paused to think. "...task some replicant with establishing it. It shouldn't be expensive to maintain, and... But how will they ever afford any drinks? Or do we establish some coupons or something?"

"Why, let them buy their drinks with their own money."

"But... but..."

"Previously we were building foundations, or more accurately tearing down all the walls that kept us from building. Now we need an incentive system. Can you give me the performance levels from before you began optimizing Elysium?"

"Oh, I have them somewhere..." Miss Dusty dug in the files of her console and soon pulled up the right one.

"Let us set these values as 100% norms. These figures are unimpressive, but acceptable. After all, Elysium did exist and was profitable before you took over, so they seem to be quite reasonable."

"We can do much better."

"And we should do much better, but we should only worry if we're doing worse than these norms."

"Extra slack. I get it. It's important for flexibility."

"Every replicant must do the norm. Then they can go home and slack off all afternoon if they so choose. The norm earns them their daily meals, recharge and maintenance."

"I can see where you're going. Bonuses for exceeding the norm."

"A progressive scale. The more they exceed the norm, the more they earn. Assume you'd have to employ a paid worker, and give them a hundred percent salary for exceeding the norm by a hundred percent."

"That will lead to abuse. They can produce extreme spikes of efficiency for extra profit, and then slack off the rest of the time."

"Yes, precisely. That's exactly what will happen. That's exactly what we want to happen."

"Uh..." she frowned. "Isn't that... inefficient?"

"Run a simulation."

She entered the figures and worked on the program for a while, setting it up. "Despite the additional costs, I am getting a 30% rise of efficiency on the average."

"Yes, this is about as far as I got in Hayburg. Make sure they aren't afraid to work that hard. Work safety, replacement parts, ability to transform extra effort into time off, and in case need for some emergency work occurs, additional bonus, say, a day off."

"Considering the money will be primarily spent on local wares..."

"That fact was never included in the Hayburg figures. But don't make the prices for them excessive."

"I have no clue what they should be, and how that all should look like. But I believe I know just the right pony for the job. Officer Baton, would you care to help me write these?"

I was suddenly jerked off from my half-dreamy state of listening to these two. "Uh... yes? What do you need?"

"Say, how much should a shot of drink cost at a replicant bar?"

"I paid seven bits, but I think it was always slightly excessive..."

"Baton," Portmaster laughed. "Don't try to cheat nice Miss Dusty into giving replicants booze at a loss."

"All right, all right. It was ten bits, but it was often watered down."

"Mister Stomper..." Dusty turned to Portmaster. "Why do you let your mare get away with that? She talks back to you, she lies, she is often condescending. This kind of behavior is not acceptable!"

"Oh, but she's not my mare. She's a replicant gone rogue. She is still technically owned by the Hayburg estate, you’ve yet to hear the kind of language she uses on me, she did use physical violence on me, if rather mild, and she once took a hostage to force me do her bidding."

"You are so silly, Mister Stomper." Dusty laughed, apparently not believing him. "So, do I receive any homework today?"

I snorted at her hopefully raised eyebrows.

"Yes, you do. Meet Fern Leaf. Write a report. It is up to you to think up the scenario."