Lamps to Light the Dark

by Ponydora Prancypants

Rating: everyone
Tags: Rarity, Slice of Life, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe
Length: 2273

Twilight Sparkle is dubious about Rarity's latest creative endeavor.

Twilight Sparkle is feeling a little glum about her long-term prospects. Can Rarity help her formulate a less gloomy understanding of the nature of the universe?

Published 2015-02-27 21:20:03 UTC
Last updated 2015-02-27 21:20:03 UTC

Cosmo-logical

“Welcome to the Carousel,” Rarity said brightly. “Ever round and round we go. What brings Twilight Sparkle to my humble abode?”

“How did you know it was me?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

“Oh, I hate to reveal trade secrets, but as time goes by you get used to the feel of ponies. Anyway, I’ve been expecting that you would eventually show up looking something like that. It’s a bit of shame, though. You had such a gorgeous mane.”

“It’s a matter of convenience,” Twilight stated. “That's all. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know I would be visiting, but I was in the neighborhood and had the notion to drop by. I see you’ve been keeping busy.”

“It is always a pleasure to see old friends,” Rarity replied. “And yes. There is always work enough to occupy my talents. Would you like to see my latest effort?” She winked conspiratorially. “I admit I may have gone a little overboard with this one.”

Twilight studied the image Rarity displayed for a long while. “Impressive,” she declared.

“And?”

“It’s very nice.”

Rarity sighed theatrically. “I knew you wouldn’t care for it. What is it? Too much blue? Or too vivid a shade? Be honest. I've become better at taking criticism.”

“It’s fine, really,” Twilight insisted. Under Rarity’s skeptical gaze, she finally went on, “If you must know, I remember you used to produce works that would stand the test of time. But this is more flash than anything else. Anyone can see it isn’t going to last.”

“Not forever, no,” Rarity agreed. “Very little lasts forever.” She chuckled softly. “But I can promise this one is going to go out with quite the bang, and I am confident that the spectacle of it will validate my design choices.”

“As long as you're happy with it. I suppose I just don’t see the point of pageantry anymore.”

Rarity smiled. “You’ve become even more of a fuddy-duddy since last we saw each other. What is it you’ve been doing, exactly? If I may ask.”

“Contemplating the heat death of the universe,” Twilight replied matter-of-factly. “Trying not to think. Thinking about how best to do that. More of the same.”

“That miserable business again? Hm.” Rarity turned away from her work. “What can I do to cheer you up? If it would please you, I suppose I could create something a little more practical.” She set to work, humming softly to herself. When she was finished, she turned back to Twilight. “Et voilà! Plain. Yellow. Unembellished. The opposite of ostentation. Actually, it reminds me of another piece I made for you.”

“I like it. Really, I do,” Twilight said. “It brings back pleasant memories. But—”

“Good,” said Rarity. “Though it’s not terribly exciting, is it? Destined for a long and unexceptional existence, safely on the edge of nowhere exciting, finally to fizzle away quietly. A bit ho hum," Rarity declared. “Not as much fun as the big, bright ones.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had fun,” Twilight said. “I can’t even imagine how I would go about it. Mostly, I feel tired.”

“I don’t see how,” Rarity observed, gesturing at Twilight with a foreleg. “How can this get tired?”

“Not physically. Men—well, not exactly mentally. You know what I mean!”

Rarity nodded. “You know, you are perfectly welcome to stay with me for a while, if you think it would make you feel better.”

“I doubt it. I just want to know what keeps you going. Why keep creating? Fundamentally, it's all meaningless. There's nothing new left. There's no one capable of appreciating your efforts. Worst of all, with every action you take, the total entropy of the system increases. The arrow only points in one direction: toward the cold and the quiet.”

Rarity shrugged. “I enjoy my work. I hope you haven’t come all this way just to go on about doom and gloom again. There must be a better place for fatalist rumination than the Carousel.”

“It isn’t doom and gloom,” Twilight insisted. “It’s a law of nature. Look; I’m not trying to stop you. I just want to know why you keep at it.”

“Perhaps I simply wasn’t built for quiet contemplation,” Rarity replied. “The impulse to keep moving and keep making is as strong in me as it ever was. I can’t envision ever stopping.”

“Though eventually you will. Eventually, there will no longer be any source of free energy with which to work. There will be total universal equilibrium. And us, presumably. Doesn’t that worry you?”

“Not presently,” Rarity replied tartly. “Anyway, I’m not sure that I entirely buy into your vaunted thermodynamics.”

“What? You can’t simply ignore the immutable laws of physics!”

Rarity narrowed her gaze.

“Ah. Well, I described the operative mechanisms for 'magic' long ago, as you know. At most, rules have been stretched but never broken. Certainly any energy expended in the form of magic still came at the price of increasing total entropy. That’s what you are doing, too. Creating anything only moves the universe closer to its inevitable end state.”

“We may have to agree to disagree,” Rarity said.

“How can you disagree?” Twilight asked, a touch of exasperation in her voice. “Are you going to propose an alternate model for the universe?”

“No.”

“Good!” Twilight shouted. “There is no alternative model!”

“If you insist on being so strident about it, I’ll have to make you one of those ‘The End is Nigh’ signs to carry around. But you’ll have to do it somewhere other than my home office.”

“You haven’t explained how you can possibly present a viable argument that creation serves a viable purpose.”

“It makes me happy,” said Rarity. “The universe is always in flux. There is something new and beautiful to seek out every day. Just as I always have, I aim to find the sublime beyond that which can be measured and calculated. When I create, there is a spark that comes from somewhere beyond your immutable laws.”

“That’s nonsense,” Twilight said. “I’m sorry, Rarity, but it is. All I want is something observable and testable that I can latch onto, to give me some justification or at least some understanding as to why you keep hanging your lamps in the darkness, when into darkness all must go.”

Rarity sighed. “Your mother never needed any scientific justification for bringing forth the day. And yet she chased away the darkness every morning without fail. I never heard her complain that it was pointless.”

“She wasn’t my mother, Rarity. Anyway, she’s long gone.”

“Wasn’t she? Goodness. My memory could use recompiling.”

“You remembered a single dress,” Twilight pointed out.

“My designs are saved in permanent storage, with numerous backups. I’d hate to forget any of them.”

“Your priorities are mind-boggling.”

“To you, perhaps,” said Rarity. “By the way, it is frustrating not to have any clue where I should be looking when I speak to you.”

“Anywhere is fine. This manifestation is undifferentiated,” said Twilight. “I want to be clear; I am in awe of what you’ve done with this galaxy. It’s phenomenal stuff. Manipulating a particle stream in the ergosphere of a ring singularity to siphon the energy to power your stellar ignition engine is genius.”

“Well that’s something nice, at least,” Rarity said. “And thank you, but I’m no Twilight Sparkle. It took a few hundred thousand years to get everything working and properly calibrated. Now, I assume there is a ‘but’ coming.”

“But,” Twilight continued. “Even this grand venture of yours has a lifespan. Once you have extracted the phenomenon’s angular momentum you will be left with a plain vanilla singularity, with no more energy that can be extracted. If you repeat the experiment a hundred times in a hundred galaxies it won’t matter how beautiful the stars and nebulae are, or how bright a beacon you can make from a quasar. You will merely have accelerated the processes which invariably lead toward the eventual dissolution of all matter into its basic components. The complete absence of energy. Every star you’ve birthed will burn out and grow cold. The frozen remains will dissolve into elementary particles. Those will decay; any remnants will be annihilated. Creation and beauty are ephemeral, pointless, and ultimately harmful.”

“Now you are striking at the core of what I am, and I don’t appreciate it,” Rarity retorted sharply. “If you want to embrace your dreary view of the universe than go right ahead. If you feel compelled to disperse your molecules or whatever you’ve got there across the void, I'm sure I can't stop you. But I don't think you would. I think you’re the one who is still afraid of the dark, Twilight Sparkle. If you must, go continue to dwell alone and inert while I decorate the starscape with a billion points of light and color, each different from the last. And you know, I don't care if sounds vain; in my heart I believe the work I am doing is saving the universe, not harming it.”

“If you really think so, explain. Scientifically.”

“Scientifically!" Rarity repeated. "Fine. You want to observe? To test? Then look around you. Look back at what was. Imagine what is to come. Grant to me, Twilight Sparkle, that you believe the universe began at a point of equilibrium. Of entropy.”

“Granted, more or less.”

“And then equilibrium was no more. Particles appeared. Those elementary particles diversified. Matter and energy. The universe expanded. The universe expanded further. It continues to expand. Granted?”

“Granted.”

“Stars appeared, long before I had anything to do with it. Great bunches of them in every color and configuration. Profuse star clusters out of the dust and gas of the void. Galaxies, irregular or beautifully symmetrical. Nebulae. Planets. Moons. Rocks.”

“Yes.”

“And life! Provide organic compounds with an energy gradient and eventually it will appear. Amoebae, fungi, trees, fish, horses, and then ponies. Then us, Twilight, still here after all these years. Think of six friends coming together and becoming so much more than the sum of their parts. Your thermodynamics would have the universe be a melting ice cube, when the reality is nine billion years of geometrically increasing complexity, of the spontaneous generation of greater structure, of miracles out of the primordial soup. Certainly the old will always give way to the new, but that’s fashion for you. What empirical evidence do you have that such a wondrous trend will ever reverse?”

“The others are gone now,” Twilight said quietly.

Rarity laughed. “They’re not gone, you silly thing. They’re just not here. I should think you’ve seen enough over the years to understand a simple concept like that. You’ve stepped into other frames before. And I presume you know that one of the quirks of rotating singularities is that they can act as gateways to other places and times. The things I have seen!”

“Pinkie Sense,” Twilight muttered. “Fine. I observe a universe characterized by a history of increasing complexity and continued expansion. Now, justify it without violating Fig’s Second Law.”

Rarity took a deep breath. “Alright, Darling. With the caveat that I am just a mare and have no special insight into the unknown; I believe that the universe is fundamentally good. No matter whence existence came, the universe is observably growing, and that growth provides opportunity. Radiative energy. Thermal differentials. It is irrelevant that total entropy must increase and is increasing, because the first great spark of creation continues to glow, ensuring that maximum possible entropy increases immeasurably more quickly. It is the same spark that glows within us. And so, the future that so troubles you need never come to pass.”

“In other words, the expansive nature of a growing universe guarantees a widening gap between the present entropy value and that required for final equilibrium?”

“Yes. With a little help from its friends, perhaps,” Rarity said, smiling. “Elements of harmony able to ward against any agents of chaos that should appear from time to time.”

“I—hm. I will have to think about this.”

“Do that,” Rarity said. “I hope you will decide that entropy is overrated. I hope you won’t resign to it, and that you will come to believe, as I do, that creation and creativity, its lifeblood, are the ultimate forces in the universe. That beauty and harmony are worth chasing, Fig’s Laws be damned.”

Twilight made a sound like a sigh. Not a sigh exactly, because such a thing was beyond the capacity of a floating agglomeration of pure thought, but close enough. “Okay."

"Okay? Well, good."

"Maybe," Twilight began tentatively, "if I am to come around to your point of view, then just for fun, maybe you could show me how to make something with this?”

Rarity brightened visibly, her inner light reflecting off the crystalline interior of the Carousel. “Certainly! I thought you’d never ask. Truly. Now, why don’t we start with something simple, along the main sequence. And after, perhaps tea?”

Twilight would have reddened, but she could not. “I don’t really drink,” she said.

“Ah. Well, perhaps you could join me anyway? The others will be along.”

Twilight almost popped out of phase. “Really? But they can’t be here! You admitted they weren’t.”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “I said they weren’t here now. But they will be, Darling. They will be, if you can be patient. We have all the time in the universe.”

Author's Note

The author does not have a science degree. Obviously.

Also, apologies to Carnot and Kelvin. I could not think good puns for your names, so I attributed your work to someone else.