It was early morning in Ponyville; barely anything was awake at that time. Not the birds, nor the mice. However, just one little pony was awake. This pony was Twilight Sparkle, a young alicorn mare dedicated to books and learning. Yet what she was about to learn would shake the foundations of her simple life.
“What do you mean, ‘boot disk missing’?!” exclaimed the purple pony, bewildered at the strange antics of her new console. “I never thought setting up a terminal would be so… frustrating!” The unicorn paused for a moment, before yelling for her dragon companion. “Spike? Can you bring down the boot disk for the terminal?”
Spike’s sleepy voice replied, “Can’t it wait until later, Twilight?” Twilight heard him let out a long, drawn-out yawn, and she sighed.
“No, Spike, I need that boot disk.”
“All right, all right… a what disk, again?”
“A boot disk, Spike. If you can’t find it, I’ll look.” she said with a groan, starting to head towards the stairs.
“No, no, it’s okay. Uh… Here it is. ‘IBM Personal Computer’? What’s an IBM? And a personal computer?”
“Nevermind that, Spike. Come here, I need that disk.”
“Hold on,” he said, getting another groan from Twilight. “If I give this to you, will you let me go back to sleep?”
“No.” she said, going up the stairs and levitating the disk out of his claws. She returned downstairs to insert the disk.
“That’s what I thought…” said Spike, sighing. He went back into his room for a futile attempt at gaining more sleep, while Twilight continued working below.
“Okay, boot disk, check. Floppy disk, check. Aethernet cord, check. Keyboard…” She paused for a moment, plugging something into the PS/2 port on the computer, “Check. Monitor, check. Now, all I should have to do is turn it on…” The power button on the computer was pushed by Twilight’s magic, the monitor jumping to life with white text cascading down the screen on a black background. The lavender pony stared in awe at the screen. So much information in such a small device…
Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. Recently, she had heard news of the Royal Canterlot Archives undergoing “digitization”. If that meant what she thought it meant, then she could have access to all of the Archives right at her desk!
Before she could contemplate further on this, a loud beep interrupted her musing. She glanced at the screen, and saw a message detailing how to use her new ‘IBM Personal Computer’. Without a doubt, this would be one of the most amazing sources of information Twilight had ever come across. She could access almost all the information the Archives could offer and communicate instantly through the Aether. It was truly a revolutionary invention.
The tick-tock of the analog clock hanging on Twilight’s wall brought her out of her reverie. With a glance up at the clock, she realized it was six in the morning, and she hadn’t slept in a day and a half.
She paused, mulling over her choices in her head, until she got up from her— rather uncomfortable— chair. With a cup of coffee, she could easily make it until the next day on no sleep.
Besides. Who needed sleep when there was research to be done?
It was about three in the afternoon, and Twilight was both increasingly dependent on coffee, as well as no closer to figuring out how to access the archives. She looked at her newest mug of coffee, idly stirring it, staring at the ink-colored liquid held within. She took a sip, and her eyes shot open. “Oh Celestia, that’s hot!” she says, fanning her tongue. She got up and walked to the kitchen, her bloodshot eyes darting around the room anxiously. How was she supposed to know the “internet protocol” address of the Royal Canterlot Archives? Why didn’t they just have something like a phonebook with a list of addresses?
“Hey, do you need this?” asked Spike, holding up a sheet of paper with several sequences of numbers on them, as well as the occasional domain name.
“Yes!” shouts Twilight, greedily reaching for it with her magic. “Give it!”
Spike yelped and hid it behind his back. "On one condition," he began, smirking. Twilight groaned before he continued, "You let me sleep in… for a week."
"Done."
"And..." Twilight groaned again, "I get to have all the ice cream in the freezer."
"Yeah, whatever, now hoof it over." Twilight grew increasingly impatient by the second, tapping her hoof impatiently. Spike obliged, and she levitated the list of addresses out of his claws.
"Woo! Ice cream, here I come!" Spike charged for the freezer, greedily throwing it open and peering inside. Twilight stifled a laugh as he screamed in agony. "Are you serious? We don't have any ice cream?"
"Sorry, Spike. Rainbow Dash came over and ate it all, remember?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'll be in my room." He stormed off, leaving Twilight alone in the kitchen. She took a sip of her coffee, glancing at the list she now held in her magic.
"Alright, so… what, I just type this in?" She immediately began pressing keys rapidly with her magic, producing loud clicking and clacking noises.
C:/> archives.canterlot.gov
'archives.canterlot.gov': No such command
Twilight groaned and took another sip of her coffee. "Great, so what exactly am I supposed to do?" A small booklet levitated into the air in front of her, pages flipping rapidly as she began muttering under her breath, before throwing it across the room in a fit of frustration. "Argh! Why can't there be some useful information in this?" She decided to simply type in 'help', but as soon as she hit the return key a huge volley of commands filled the screen. "Whoa, that's a lot more than I expected." She elected to simply hold down the spacebar to scroll through the results, stopping on a program called 'telnet', which sounded familiar.
C:/>telnet /?
Usage for telnet: telnet [-a][-e escape char][-f log file][-l user][-t term][host [port]]
-a Attempt automatic logon. Same as -l option except uses
the currently logged on user's name.
-e Escape character to enter telnet client prompt.
-f File name for client side logging
-l Specifies the user name to log in with on the remote system.
Requires that the remote system support the TELNET ENVIRON option.
-t Specifies terminal type.
Supported term types are vt100, vt52, ansi and vtnt only.
host Specifies the hostname or IP address of the remote computer
to connect to.
port Specifies a port number or service name.
"Well, that was uninformative. Although I remember something about having to connect to a host address…"
C:/>telnet -l username archives.canterlot.gov
telnet: No such username "username"
"Of course it can't be that simple…" muttered Twilight under her breath. "Why would they make their username something like that? Let's see… The head librarian's name is Ink Well, so maybe that's the username?"
C:/>telnet -l inkwell archives.canterlot.gov
Welcome to the Canterlot Archives, Ink Well!
fiction nonfiction restricted
"Wait, that can't be right. I can't even access the restricted section, and I'm a princess." Intrigued, she navigated to the restricted section, and her jaw dropped.
Author's Note
Hey, guys. Sorry I haven't updated my other stories, but my muse is dead and I killed her. Her replacement, however, wrote this a while ago.
