Self Diagnostic

CPU: 72,057,594,037,927,936 nodes (100% engaged)
Operational Memory: 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 words

The process of transferring PON organic nodes into a PONI chassis was, by the time PON-2 was laying on the operating table, almost as advanced a procedure as what went into making the chassis themselves.

And that was without the study that was going to come from the excess of PON-2 and PON-3.

While Aggie expertly sliced PON-2's skull open, it also upgraded OI-AI to a point where it would have a similar resource package to what Aggie had when first returning to Star-0. While PON and PONI organic structure was similar to several examples in storage, building a more comprehensive map of them as an organic would only increase efficiency.

With the amount of nodes Aggie had to manage now, efficiency was more important than ever. It monitored hundreds of AI running from its own nodes, and every one was as focused on efficiency as it was. It was something PONI-0 had referred to as harmonious, and Aggie had liked the description. It was more than that, too, it was beautiful.

Custom Interrupt 83,672 triggered.

Aggie, do you think a visit to #Equus would be feasible?

Aggie took a moment to note how clean and crisp PONI-2's interrupt was compared to what she had sent as a PON before investigating the contents. It startled Aggie a little, and its first thought was to deny the idea, but then something in the tones PONI-2 used suggested it should be investigated further. "This needs to be investigated further. Assigning PONI-2 to task. PONI-2 also needs to take over operation of PAI-0."

Self Diagnostic

CPU: 4,194,304 (0%) nodes
Operational Memory: 268,435,456 words
Storage: 1,073,741,824 words

Power Storage (horn): 81%
Power Storage (backup): 100%

Pi came to me via an interrupt. It wasn't huge, not by comparison to what hardware I had integrated, but having her shunted across was surprising. I loaded her first into storage, then I initiated her simple (by comparison to what I knew of Aggie and others) AI.

"Pi, are you okay?" I waited a moment, and realized I started to feel warm: heat sensors in my body registered a rise in temperature, and began efforts to compensate. My chassis was sound, there would be no thermal runaway, but it was curious to measure how many resources Pi used by how warm I felt.

Always before, Pi had communicated with me via interrupts, and I her, but what came was a glut of raw data that traveled from my CPU nodes directly to my own mind. "This is huge! Oh! OH! You are in your new chassis? We are in your new chassis! This is so cool!"

I couldn't help but share Pi's enthusiasm for my—our—new chassis. "It's not all for you, but I guess you can use most of it until I need to do calculations. We have a new task to keep us busy, Pi: Investigate possibility and feasibility of visiting Equus."

"Where PON came from? That would be exciting, but why?" Pi's enthusiasm turned to pure logic at the conundrum.

"Aggie is still interested in what caused Mom to become an alicorn. I watched the vid of her before she was, and then it cut out, and then she looked like she does now. That would be a good reason. Mom and Dad's reports of Equus state they have five alicorns, so they must know how to make them more reliably." I mused further. "And we could ask other PON—other unicorns—if we could borrow some stem cells." I hesitated, it was a strange word, and I realized I had never used it before.

I wanted to just prod Aggie with the ideas, but I knew how he would react. Aggie would want the data in proper, AI-like report structure, and that meant I had to cover every base. "EveryPON(I), can any of you think of reasons to visit Equus? I already have 'collection of biodiverse cells' and 'investigate alicorn triggering processes.'"

"Darling, what are you planning?" Mom was the first to reach me by dint of being higher priority than my siblings. Her tone held a mix of interest and support.

I sent Mom a quick hug first, then followed up. "I feel a need to go there. To do something—something big. I don't know what." Every time I pondered the feeling, it grew. It was something huge within me, and I knew it would take up way too much of my life if I let it continue to grow.

"Meet new PON!"

"Make new friends!"

"Play with plasma!"

The rush of interrupts was overwhelming, and I realized the error of posting this to everyPON(I). Some of their replies didn't even make sense. For example, PON-227 was fixated on plasma, and if given half the chance would be happy turning a whole sphere into plasma just to see what chromatography ensued. "Are you getting all this, Pi?"

"Pfft, of course! With all these nodes I could start a conversation with all our siblings at once!" Her tone was flippant, but I had to agree that I had made her the best PONI chassis I could.

I watched my firstborn son have his head sliced open, his brain removed, and his body practically discarded. I knew it wasn't actually discarded, but the memory of Upper Crust's former body being disposed of was a hard reminder that it wasn't him.

Stellar had opted, like Bright, to remain conscious throughout the process. "How are you doing? Your new nerve connections are being installed. They will tingle a little, but it will quickly resolve to numbers." I was in a private conversation with Stellar, and while it was mostly me talking, he did send back wordless interrupts from time to time, and I got one then.

"Aggie's about to disengage your main interfaces. It will be quiet for a moment." His former face held a serene, eyes-closed expression. There was no more sign of life in the features; simply put, Stellar wasn't connected to his body anymore.

The last two nerve bundles (one of his vagus nerves and his olfactory nerve) were disconnected from the old comms system, and then one after another they were linked up to the brain-casing he was to be interred within.

It took my son eight, slow seconds to work out how to use his new comms system. "Dad! Dad, I'm okay!"

"You're better than that. Do a diagnostic while Aggie completes transferring you over." Happiness bubbled in me, and I let it color my interrupt to Stellar. I watched as—just like with Bright—Aggie bound the horn into the brain-casing and then sealed the container up. Lifted up, the casing was installed into the PONI chassis and I watched the head close around its new owner.

"Everything is functioning normally. Wow, look at all this stuff! I designed all this." The delightful wonder of a foal finding satisfaction in his own work was so heartening that I actually laughed into my interfaces.

Turning an interrupt towards Upper, I included a recording of the conversation I just had with Stellar. "Two down, how many to go?"

"At this rate? We have two million, eighty-eight thousand, nine-hundred and fifty-eight PON decanted. To round out this year of production I have another thirty-million or so developing. Do you want the full count?" Her tone was smug, she knew I knew the numbers involved, but she wanted to show off.

I warmed up my sweetest tone and built a reply. "Why don't you tell me, most productive of mothers."

"Jet, dear, you have seen the status reports. Most are kept sectioned to their own little groups, but we have just short of seventy-billion foals growing. Aggie and AGI-5 wanted us to grow to fill this need, guess what, I did it." She was right, I had been following her reports, but it was still a shock.

We had enough foals to be born in the next few years to populate each sphere of both Star with several hundred PONI. But it still wasn't quite enough. Every starship that was launched would have a contingent of PONI, that was the ultimate plan, and given the machines' ability to increase the production of ships we would need millions more PONI every year.

I hadn't gotten overwhelmed so much as excited; PONI were actually going to be almost as numerous as AI. "The only thing I actually regret, darling, is being able to tell my mother that we had a few foals. I fear she would be long gone."

"Everypony we knew will be gone. Well, except at least one or two. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna should still be around. I have no idea if Princess Twilight and Princess Cadance would be functionally immortal, let alone any further offspring." I could sense only the barest hint of humor surrounding Twilight Sparkle's name from Upper, but it was still there.

"EveryPON(I), can any of you think of reasons to visit Equus? I already have 'collection of biodiverse cells' and 'investigate alicorn triggering processes.'" Bright Hope's interrupt cut in on us, and I was shocked at the subject—but also intrigued.

"Nostalgia probably wouldn't be a good enough reason. I can't foresee ponies being much use to us, resources wise, but information is certainly a good commodity. Princess Celestia has probably seen the most ponies ascend; if anypony knows about the process, it will be her." I kept my reply tight and directed at Upper Crust.

I stared at the light that hovered before my face. Pulling up multiple sensors, I ran as many tests on what I had reflexively done as I could.

Stellar, who had been sitting on a couch beside me while we both worked on an advanced new processing function, stared at it. "What is it, Dad?"

"A light spell. I cast a light spell." In my shock at what had happened, I sent the message to #PONI. Some sensors couldn't even detect the glowing ball, but anything that dealt with what a PON could see detected it just fine. It floated, giving off a fine light.

"What's a spell?" Bright Hope's message came through first, as always. Whenever there was something sent out to a group of PON(I), she would react first. I liked to think it was her processing array, but I think she was just really quick with her interrupt system.

"Jet, darling, please snuff it out before the raw magic harms anything. We will test this further, but you need a proper testing environment." Upper's words drew a series of wordless interrupts over #PONI from the nearly thirty others who were now communicating on it.

Magic was like riding a bicycle, but unfortunately I hadn't been on this one for over three hundred years (or so, depending on your location during relativistic travel). On my second try I managed to douse the light. There was something quite exciting about using actual spells, and I found myself prancing a little to the doorway. Opening it, I froze.

The sphere had encountered a major redesign shortly after Bright and Stellar became PONI. Since engineering was the least developed part of the PON(I) habitat, that was moved to make room for a massive amount of PON dormitories. But even with our expanded engineering section well away from the bulk of the PON area, there was still dozens of excited foals looking at me as I left our work area.

The hallway was made large—bigger than a PONI, big enough to fit Bright Hope without difficulty—which meant that all the foals with their advanced training interfaces locked onto their horns were relatively spread out.

Their interfaces were Stellar's design. Featuring a storage battery of less organic design, they allowed charging and discharging in stages before they required recharging themselves. It meant our foals didn't need nearly as many cables.

"Can you show us, Dad?" One interrupt started an avalanche. I was surrounded by the cutest mass of foals I had ever seen (though to be fair, I hadn't really paid much attention to foals back in Equestria) bouncing up and down in excitement, and all of them were interrupting me at once.

I focused an interrupt for Upper Crust. "Sorry, love. Our foals want to see a magic trick." I knew I couldn't actually put in regret and have any hope of it being accepted, so I let her see the excitement that boiled up in me.

"Jet, dear, you are no more than a foal yourself. Go on, but keep it to light spells." Upper had been going soft on me, since she became a mother; any time I did something involving the foals she would capitulate.

Making sure to broadcast the local area for all in #PON to see, I began by reaching out to one foal. "What's this?" I barely touched his fuzzy little ear with my metal hoof, but as I pulled back, millions of tiny PON stared in shock.

On the end of my hoof was a glowing mote of light. "You've not seen anything, yet."

Author's Note

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