Chapters Chapter 1: It’s the Matrix all over again
I wish today could have played out differently, I really do. I woke just like any other day, made coffe and adorned my ID card and left for work. For the past 3 years I’ve worked at 343 as a Graphic Designer, working mostly on armor for the Player and Elites, but enough on that, as I was driving I had come across your ordinary run of the mill intersection, I was behind a white Sedan preparing to turn right. That’s when everything changed however, a car started to drive past me when a bomb inside it exploded, destroying several vehicles and flipping several others, I somehow barely survived the explosion.
I looked up and saw one of my legs with a piece of metal sticking through it, blood rapidly flowing from the wound, everything was slowly fading black as I started to lose conscience, that last thing I thought was Why, why here, why now. It just didn’t make sense, why...
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When I awoke, green text appeared in front of me reading
Rebooting A.I...
Uh... What, how am I here, and where is here to be exact?
I ‘looked’ around myself to find hundreds of different connections leading to different places, I entered one of the connections leading to some sort of news type site, I searched through it to the start of the decade , and judging by the dates on these articles, they use a similar calendar to ours. I skimmed through the articles and found out the main species in this country is sort of humanoid, looking creatures, that are covered in fur and have manes and tails, some have either a horn or wings while some have neither. Another thing of interest is that an incident involving a sapient A.I led to the ban of most A.I after the death of several thousand. Another article tells Ponies, Wait, they call themselves Ponies, that’s a good thing to know , to stay away from the abandoned robotics factory far out on the outskirts of Cog City.
Well, I guess that would be a good place to exist outside of the main focus of Pony society, it would also be a good place to run tests on a synthetic body capable of walking around Pony society with out drawing attention.
I navigated my way into the facility’s mainframe and booted it up again, I changed the loader bots program to bring all the parts to a central pile to be sorted through. I erased all mentions of this places existence from all records, and with that dealt with, I started to set up a designing program to aid in the construction of future robots. After about an hour of fiddling and fine tuning of the program, the hauler bots had finished their task, I turned the bots off to conserve power, and then opened up the design program.
I made a small recon drone based on the GREMLIN from xcom 2, a small box with a camera with thermal vision on the front, with four small wing type things containing small rotar blades for flight, in addition to a small taser type weapon for defense against organic targets. I ordered the factory to build 4 of these Moth class drones. After they were built, I gave a search order for materials for solar panels and batteries, with the drones out searching, I made a design for a combat MEC, just in case I end up needing it, I designed this one like the ADVENT Mec unit from Xcom 2, it’s basic structure can be described like this, it has a triangle shaped main body with two arms and two legs, with similar triangular plating protecting it, it’s head is a small box like structure with two sensors that can see normally, but also have night vision and thermal optics for 24 hour combat viability.
I decided to arm it with an Arc cannon for use against organic targets, the Arc cannon shoots arcs of electricity that can jump between targets at a maximum distance of 7.62 meters, the large amount of electricity going through the target shuts down their heart and brain causing almost instantaneous death to the target.
That should be good I guess, let’s see if the drones have found anything useful. Hm... looks like they found plenty of parts for power and replication of additional units, they’ve also found several nearby settlements, the closest town appears to be Ponyville . A red alert appeared to my right, I turned to investigate and appears Unit#03 has been captured by these ponies and is requesting orders, I order it to explode. The last thing the audio receptors pick up is a scream to get rid of the robot before everything from Unit#03 went offline.
Well, that’s not good, I need to hurry up and get a Defender MEC built.
I ordered the other three drones to return to the factory, I ordered the hauler bits to get the nearest supplies located by the Moth units, power was starting to run out and I need an independent power source if I’m to keep living for another day.
Chapter 2: Friendship.exe in the Making
I’ve been digging into some other systems and discovered these ponies discard Uranium when they dig it up due to it being “too unstable and unreliable for a sufficiently cost effective power source,” well, if they don’t care about it then they won’t mind a few shipments “disappearing” from the chain.
On another note, I’m going to need intel on the Ponies and there military strength. I’m going to need to channel my inner Contingency and design specialist androids for infiltration, I’m going to need to acquire blood samples to create synthetic skin, and maybe as a future project, develop a body for myself. In the meantime, I’ll start up designs for a nuclear reactor.
13 HOURS LATER
In the midst of my organization of my units, a flashy red alarm went off stating that something was trying to infiltrate my systems, being the total smart person I am, I checked it out myself instead of investing what had found me.
I quickly arrived at the site of the disturbance and saw one of those ‘ponies’ except it had both wings and a horn. It seemed curious about my firewall.
Should I reveal my true self, or should I create a different body to use for interactions? I’ll risk it with my true body, if I can make this being an ally it would be a decent progression in my abilities to stay alive.
As I stepped out of the firewall the being quickly turned to look at me. I got a better look at her from outside the firewall, she had a slim form with a long flowing mane and tail that seemed to be blowing in a nonexistent breeze. Her fur was a dark blue and here eyes were of the same color.
“H-Hello I’m John, who are you?” I stuttered as i spoke, not being used to talking in this digital state.
“Hello John, we are Luna, the Princess of the Night. We discovered your door while traversing the Dream realm and upon entering we noticed this wall of fire, we want to inquire what is going on in thine life that would cause this wall?” Luna had responded.
“That’s nice of you, but you see Luna, I’m a digital being and that wall of fire is actually the firewall protecting my core code, so... yeah.” I told her as I prepared to make a hasty retreat back into the security of the firewall.
“So thou is an A.I? Truly fascinating that you are still operating after sister put a ban on advanced A.I.”
That’s not what I expected, I was expecting a little more violence towards me or something like that. “So... you’re not going to try and deactivate me?”
“Why would we, thou has given us no reason too, infact you seem rather charming for an A.I.”
“That’s good, do you think maybe we could be friends or something along the lines of that?” I asked hopefully.
“I think we could work towards that, then we could use this as proof that not all A.I are inherently evil.” Luna responded in a more friendly voice.
“Actually one more thing Luna, do you think you could help me with something in person?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I want help designing a body that looks like another Pony so I can walk around in public and not be destroyed for being different.”
“Thines request seems reasonable, we will have to put restrictions to prevent any harm coming to my subjects.”
The details of the rest of our conversation seemed to elude me after that, for I can not recall what happened. The last thing I remember from that was her leaving after our agreement on a time and place was figured out.
Chapter 3: Project New Horizon
Author's Note
This should be the last short chapter before I get to work on the next chapter, which will be longer than these have been.
Chapter 3: Project New Horizon
In 2 days Luna is going to arrive here, which should give me a decent amount of time to start designing a prototype body to use. I’ve decided to make my body resemble an Earth Pony, it cost less in the long run in both steel and biological tissue. I’ve also started to delve deeper into the ruins of the facility and found a few storage rooms stocked with steel and electronic components, along with a few crates of Celarium, an alloy that’s stronger than steel but heavier and more brittle, there’s not much of it so I’m going to save it for a later project, I’d probably use it for construction of the reactor. Anyway, I implemented a Bio-reactor into my body, it’s more stable than a nuclear reactor and also a lot cheaper. It would also lower my chances of being caught as a Synth.
48 Hours of Testing and Redesigning later
Alright, test number 56, hopefully I’ve calculated and calibrated everything correctly, otherwise I might run dry on resources at this rate. Alright here goes... Data Transfer initialized... Transfer successful... Beginning reactor diagnostics... Diagnostics complete, running at 100% efficiency... Beginning optical and auditory sensor calibration... Sensor calibration complete, all systems operating.
Great, now to check the movement systems, I slowly moved my head around and nothing seemed to scape up against anything, then I moved my arms and legs, same thing, no scraping or jamming. Now I just need to apply the synthetic skin. I released my body from its constraints and it fell about a foot befor hitting the ground, the shock absorbers worked extremely well, I then walked over to a special built machine to apply the skin to my body. I jumped from this body to one of my modified Moth drones, simply I removed the stun weapon and replaced it with a camera and then replaced the front panel with a screen to display my face on. I flew it to the meeting point, about 150 feet from the factory and waited.
Soon enough Luna arrived, “Hello Luna, I’ve built the body for myself and tested it for its reliability, all I need is your opinion on how much it looks like a pony. On a different topic, how have you been?”
“And hello to you John, we’ve been doing well, how has thy been?” Luna said
“I’m relieved that I finally got the proper adjustments on it, I’ve had to rebuild it 56 times before I got everything right. Just follow this robot and it will lead you back to the factory.” I told her before jumping back to my body and waited for Luna to arrive again.
About 2 minuets had passed before she arrived, I waved to her before approaching and she waved back.
“So, I’m assuming this is thines body. If we didn’t know better I would say thy was just another Pony, well done.”
“Thanks Luna, as you can see I still have a lot of work to do if I’m to fully repair this place, other than this theirs not much else to see exept for my mainframe and the charging area for my units. I strengthened the roof enough for somebody to walk up there, the view is really spectacular.”
“Well, if it’s as spectacular as you say, why not head up their now before we depart for the Canterlot Immigration Bureau, to make you a proper citizen.”
“Right this way Luna, it’s just up those stairs.”
We walked up to the top and looked South, it was just a large field, and about a mile away a forest started to stretch to the horizon. I looked over to Luna, who seemed to enjoy the view.
“It’s not often we see this much of the organic world anymore, with Canterlot and the surrounding areas being turned into cities and factories, we truly thank thy for showing us this view at the organic world.
View Online
Chapter 4: I’ve got a bad feeling about this
When we arrived in Cog City it was starting to get dark, we were heading towards the landing pads, where an Equestrian Government helicopter was waiting for Luna. The helicopter was quieter than I expected it to be, it was still loud mind you, when we boarded it the Co-pilot called Luna to the front of it and told her something that I couldn’t hear over the sound of the blades. The physical appearance of the craft reminded me of a UH-1 Huey, complete with door gunners and twin mini guns on the side.
Luna came back and sat down across from me told me something as we took off, “Change of plans John, Celestia wants to have a word with you at the Palace.”
“What do you think it’s about, I thought she wanted to destroy sentient A.I?”
“She’ll most likely want to see personally if your intentions are good like I said they were.”
The entirety of the flight only took about half an hour before we landed at the Canterlot Airbase, as
The palace was absolutely massive, the corridors were like a maze, it would be almost impossible for someone to escape this place unassisted. When we arrived at the door to the throne room, I was told to wait outside as Luna and two of the soldiers went into the room. As I was waiting I inspected the one of the rifles more closely from where I was, the weapon seemed to have a 30 round magazine, and a partial stock similar to the one on the Aks-74U, and if the measuring tool was correct, it seemed to be firing 6.45x38mm rounds. I didn’t get a further chance to inspect it because the doors opened and a single soldier stepped, pointed at me and motioned for me to go into the room behind her, “Celestia wishes to see you now.”
I entered the room and the door closed behind me, I approached the throne and kneeled down to show respect.
“You may rise, John. I have a few questions to ask you.” Celestia said in an authoritative yet not quite as harsh voice.
“Fire away Princess, I’ll answer your questions to the best of my abilities.”
“Good, First, who created you?”
“No one Ma’am, I died in my previous life and woke up here as an A.I.”
“I hope you know I find that hard to believe.”
“I know, if you could look at my memory you could see in telling the truth, unless I had a projector of some sort I am unable to so.”
“I can have a guard bring in one, onto the second question, what is your intentions here in Equestria, however if I find out your lying I’ll make you wish you were still dead.”
“My only intention is survival, and I’ve calculated my best chance would be an alliance with Equestria.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live, this brings me to my next question, if you were attacked by an Equstrian citizen, would you kill them.”
“I would only kill if I absolutely had to, I would try to incapacitate them with minimal harm coming to them.”
I was questioned for at least a couple hours before the projector had arrived, Luna must have left at some point because when I looked over to where she was sitting before, she wasn’t there. I made a wireless connection to the device and proceeded to replay the events from when i died to just after I had construction of my Moth scouts.
“Could you explain more about your death, it’s evident that an explosion happened, but how?”
“Well, I assume it was an attack by a terrorist force, after the explosion my vehicle had flipped and a piece of shrapnel from another vehicle had pierced one of my legs and the other got crushed by something else, I bled out very quickly, thank god.”
Our conversation had gone for about another hour or so, her body language changing from that of hostility to more of a neutral look.
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Perspective change: PFC. Silver Wing
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I looked over the plains of southern Germaney, there was no movement, just like every other night. I went inside of the radar station, I went over to the monitor where Ruby stationed. “Pvt. Ruby, are you picking up anything on radar?” I asked her.
“Still nothing sir, same as an hour a go.” Ruby replied
“Alright, keep me updated if anything changes.”
“Yes sir”
I walked back outside and on to the catwalk and looked back over the field. Pvt. Amber came out of the barracks on the other side of the catwalk and took up a position to my right. I kept looking over the fields for about 45 minutes, I was just about to clock the end of my shift when I saw a flash of light out in the field, CRACK , a round impacted Amber’s helmet, going straight through, then I heard the bang of the rifle.
“Sniper! Somewhere south!” I shouted as I ducked behind some sandbags, I dropped down from the catwalk and into the courtyard, I unslung my M18 rifle and started to run over to the command building when two Zebra Spetsnaz soldiers rushed around the front gate and into the courtyard, and opened fire on us, Pvt. Dusk and Pvt. Song were taken out almost immediately, I got into cover and returned fire, I hit one in the chest, killing him almost immediately. The other one fired before getting behind an T3 truck, several more came through the gate, they threw smoke in front of my position before they advanced.
Fuck, I need to warn High-Com, the radio is up in the radar tower, and I can’t get there, my only choice is to get out and run towards nearest outpost.
Chapter 5: Into the trenches.
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. 