Fallout Equestria: Soldier, Seeker, Eagle

Lab J was known to Lyra Machine and Tool’s employees as a joke. Rivet thought his mother had been in on the joke and would assign a real lab for the project in the morning. She had not.

Lab J was a former supply closet for the janitorial crew. It was precisely big enough for two ponies to work, and generally served as a station for developing small prototypes. Rivet’s team had four ponies, a host of diagnostic equipment, computer science equipment, thaoumarterical supplies, and an entire Assault Pony chassis crammed into the Lab’s miniature footprint.

Three of the four ponies were not happy about this. The other simply did not care.

The Lab was so small team meetings couldn’t be held without each only being seated at their workstation, with their view majorly obstructed by the dangling chassis which had been fastened by hooks and chains to one of the I-beams serving as a floor joist for the story above the lab.

Rivet’s station was beside the door. A simple desk with a chair and the lab’s main terminal, a generation old RobronCo KL99, top of the line in its day. Simple, minimalist, decoratively geometric in shape, and a delight to do word processing on. Perfectly suitable for programming the prototype.

The station to Rivet’s right was the diagnostics workbench, overseen by March Pop. March was an odd looking Earth Pony stallion whose singed-orchid fur combined with his gravity defying mane and tail top make it appear as if he’d just had an unfortunate encounter with high voltage. When he’d first joined the company, he’d been regularly asked if he needed to be rushed to a clinic for emergency care. These days, his co-workers often worried if they would ever be able to tell if he did get electrocuted one day.

Match’s generally stressed body language and rapid-fire manner of speaking didn’t remotely help reduce the impression his appearance leveraged onto others either. Fortunately it was only an appearance. March was one of the best robotics experts available, and had been more than willing to work on Rivet’s project out of intrigue alone.

Next to the diagnostics table was Lab J’s arcane workbench. It wasn’t much, just a mixing basin and calcinator for alchemy in case the need to transmute items arose. Another smaller section held cutting and etching tools needed to craft individual custom spell-matrix components. None of the tools were company property either, as most projects at Lyra’s Machine and Tool were purely technological. The mage Rivet had recruited, Balanced Time, brought his own equipment from home for use on the project.

Fortunately, Balanced had the muscle to carry most anything to and from home, and wouldn’t need to telekinetically float their heavy and bulky satchel of equipment to and from the lab every day. Few unicorns ever took an interest in physical exercise other than aerobic or endurance training. Balanced had taken an interest in weightlifting, not just telekinetically but physically. He often made nice hooffulls of bits betting Earth Ponies he could leg-wrestle them and win. He didn’t always win, of course, but he stood a good enough chance to cover his drinks most nights.

Balanced believed in his namesake and spent as much time studying magic as he did socializing, working out, and living a full and rich life. His prussian blue fur was always freshly shampooed, and his magenta striped ruby mane and tail were always well groomed. Balance had originally been hired to help develop better spark batteries, but wound up moving around the company using his arcane talents on any project which could be helped by a spell or two.

In spite of the presence of a wizard’s workbench, the computer science station to Rivet’s left was where most of the “magic” would happen. It was occupied by Rainy Creek, an earth pony mare of such generic appearance nopony could ever remember the specifics of her looks. Try as anypony might, anypony trying to describe her could only ever come up with terms like “generic” or “normal”. Ironically it made her stand out quite a bit, but only when thought about later on, never while she was present in a room where she could be seen.

Perhaps due to her incredibly unassuming looks, Rainy took extreme measures to be memorable for her mind. While Lyra considered her son Rivet to be the company’s best programmer, Rivet disagreed. Rainy came up with half of the ideas Rivet brought to fruition. He did not steal her ideas, as he always made clear in the code. She simply didn’t have time to develop them all herself.

Rainy was the only pony to be on the project by their own demand. In her words “If you’re making a real robot, not one of those glorified speak and spells, I’m going to be a part of it. Say no and I’ll kick you in the dick every single day I’m not on the project.”

Rivet knew two things about Rainy aside from her extremely high qualifications as a programmer. He knew that she was normally a very nice mare, and indeed had his fiance's death not been on his mind so often, Rivet would have asked her out years ago. He also knew beyond rational certainty that Rainy absolutely would carry out her threat.

Rainy would likely have gone to the extreme of building a simple robot to ensure she never missed a day if necessary. Thus, Rainy had secured her assignment to the project.

The project was both in need of an official name as well as in a somewhat dire state. The tiny lab and limited workroom already had everypony a bit on edge. Very few ponies liked to be indoors for long, let alone crammed into a space so small your workmate is likely to knock over your water bottle simply by turning their head.

Rivet finished entering the last of the workday’s opening log on his terminal, then carefully turned around to face his team. At least, as much turning as the dangling obstruction permitted. It wasn’t the chassis they would be using, rather it was one of the captured Assault-Pone-3 frames meant for reverse engineering, but it had been assigned to the project as a resource. Primarily so measurements could be taken for any custom parts the prototype would require.

Which meant it had to be in the lab. Even though it could only fit if hung from the ceiling. Even though everypony had banged their head into a dangling robotic hoof at least twice in the last ten minutes. The resulting swearing had Rivet fetch an old bucket to serve as a swear jar.

To improve morale, ponies would toss two bits into the bucket for each instance of cursing in the lab. Meanwhile, anypony could give points to any other pony for anything that cheered them up, felt insightful, or otherwise helped keep things happy. Whoever had the most points at the end of the day would take home the swear jar pot.

Thirty seven bits were up for grabs so far. It had been perhaps fifteen minutes since the workday began.

“Alright everypony,” Rivet began, hoping his voice wasn’t too nervous and squeaky for his first official statement as a manager. “I know our situation is less than ideal but there is hope.”

Rivet held up a memo his mother had written that morning for his co-workers to see. “Once we have created the hardware and software base for our as-of-yet-unnamed project, we will be assigned additional labspace for testing purposes. If we work hard, we’ll only be here in J for a few weeks. I’ll understand if anypony needs to work in the hallway… Just don’t let anypony catch you outside with your equipment.”

He cleared his throat once and looked each of his team in the eyes, though his vision was obstructed by the hanging chassis, making it only barely possible. In Rainy’s case that was just one eye since one of the chassis’s hanging hooves hid half her face. “As our first order of business, I would like to come up with a name for this project. Any suggestions?”

“Microcosm,” Balance said in his rumbly voice as he scootched back and forth to find a comfortable space to sit in.

A difficult task given his large and bulky build.

Rainy’s ears perked at the suggestion. “Oh! I get it,” she said with a grin. “We’re trying to encapsulate an entire consciousness into a small bit of hardware. A literal microcosm of equinity. Ten points for poetry, Balance.”

Balance snorted and gave the programmer a bemused look. “No. Because this room is encapsulating us and makes me feel like we’re all miniatures in a toybox.”

March erupted in laughter. His shaking body resting against his desk made the old timber creak and groan under his weight. After a moment the stallion wiped a tear from his eye. “Ten points for poetry, Balance.”

Rivet cleared his throat to try and establish order while Rainy glared at her two coworkers.

“Well, everyone likes it, and it doesn't sound similar to any active projects I know of…” Rivet said thoughtfully before nodding to himself and turning around to enter the name into his terminal. “Project Microcosm does have a good ring to it.”

His horn shimmered as he tapped each key in sequence with precise, delicate, yet rapid pulses of telekinesis. As soon as the keys stopped clicking, Rivet turned back to his colleagues. “I’d have asked for more options, but it’s good, and I don't want to waste time on irrelevant details… Shall we get down to business?”

“Please,” March groaned. “I already feel claustrophobic… How long have we been here?”

“About five minutes,” Rainy said casually as she picked up a small notepad and opened it to ready a presentation. “Stop complaining, this place is bigger than my apartment.”

Rivet took a second to hope that wasn’t true, then closed his notepad. "Lastly, off the record, we've been allocated eight million total bits for this project. With one and a half subtracted for our salaries for the next three months and another half million taken for lab setup costs, we have six million bits for the project itself. If anypony can locate useful spare parts from other departments, or even other companies on the approved clearance list, let me know and we'll incorporate it."

Rainy raised a hoof making her chair creek. "OH! I've had this one SkyTech rep trying to get me to try one of their shield talismans out. It's a demo unit and they want to sell us the real things so we can manufacture stuff using their shields. I’ve been saying no because that’s not my department, but I could accept it and we could toss that in the chassis. Save us a good mill."

Balanced turned slightly and wacked his shin against his desk. “OW!”

He reached down to grab his hindleg with a hoof and cracked his forehead into the hanging robotic chassis, nearly missing hitting it with his horn. “BUCKING-SUN’S— OOOOOW!”

March winced in sympathy and rubbed his forehead. Rainy giggled like she did when watching slapstick comedy programs.

Rivet stood up and began to reach for the lab’s medical kit. “Are you bleeding?”

“No,” Balanced groaned as he rubbed his forehead. “What was I going to… Yes!”

Balanced fished in his saddlebag for his coin purse, removed two bits, tossed them into the bucket, then cleared his throat.

“I’ve heard of SkyTech,” he said. “It’s a very small company that used to be headquartered in a town in the badlands. It’s deep in Zebrican territory now. They’re not blacklisted as spies, but we should be careful using anything from them.”

Rainy nodded in agreement and began to turn her notebook over in her hooves. “Oh yes, absolutely. But we need to think about this logically. We’re not creating a mere machine, we’re creating a mechanical pony. If it's damaged, especially in the field, it can’t simply hang around base for a week to heal, or slug back a healing potion, or be tended to by the field medic.”

Rainy turned her notebook for everypony to see. The notebook had been filled with all manner of designs, illustrations of situations, and of course written down thoughts. It was immediately clear the mare had put a surprising amount of thought into the creation of artificial lifeforms for quite some time.

“They would need to be repaired, and that would mean the military would need an entirely new supply line of robot parts,” Rainy continued as she moved her book around so each other colleagues could see an illustration she had made showing a shield at work around a pony form.

“Additionally, this is a machine that learns. It is like a pony in that regard,” Rainy said as she paged through her notebook to try and locate a particular thought of her she'd written down. “We can presume it will have some sort of psychology. Likely not exactly like a pony’s, but certainly similar. Would you want to be hit once and then potentially wounded for life? Or if you broke a leg would you want to be put into a coma until you were healed?”

Rainy gave up locating the passage, and set her notebook aside. “We should strive to prevent damage as much as possible. We shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to include a regenerative shield system. Especially since anti-machine rifles exist now.”

March hummed, stroked his chin then sighed and nodded to Rainy. “She’s right. We should take it, but examine the hay out of it. Probably rebuild it ourselves if we can.”

Balanced shook his head and managed to scoot his chair into a comfortable spot at last. It was clear he was going to speak, but before he did, he took a marker from his saddlebag, and using telekinesis, traced the base of his swivel chair onto the floor.

Once finished, he capped the marker and proclaimed, “There!” with extreme relief.

Turning his attention back to the task at hoof, Balanced began to refute the idea. “I agree with her sentiment, but wouldn’t it be more energy efficient to include a repair talisman? Sure, they require the consumption of raw resources, at least the ones we see in Steel Ranger armor do. But that’s why they don't draw so much power. I know we could fit the power system for a shield talisman into the chassis, but I think I could talk a friend into letting me talk to someone in the upper ranks of the MWT. We’re making this robot for them, after all. I think I may be able to get them to issue us a repair talisman if I imbibe a little bit of liquid diplomacy before hoof.”

Rivet closed his eyes and shook his head. “No talking to Ministries while drunk. That goes for everypony.”

Balance frowned then laughed and shot Rivet a grin. “Oh! No, nonono. Not alcohol. I brew social potions for use in bars.”

Rainy cleared her throat and shot Balanced a deathglare. “Excuse me?”

The stallion noticed her out of the corner of his eye, and ran a hoof through his mane. “It’s not like that. They’re for me. They help you phrase things better.”

Rainy raised an eyebrow then looked back to her notebook. “Well, I can see you have a need for such a thing.”

Rivet held in a laugh as Balanced fumed in his chair. “Three points for Rainy.” Rivet said after a moment.

Rivet cleared his throat again a second later to help him refocus on work. “I think both of those are good ideas. If we can get both, we should include both. It’s not that hard to provide power to several talismans. Most of them draw about as much energy as any other given talisman. All we would need to do was set up a relay system for activating them individually or in sets.”

Rivet turned to pick up a piece of paper and a pen and levitated them to draw, quickly sketching out a simple circuit which would toggle the activation of up to three talismans. “Something like this is what I’m proposing. It would let us use both, which would be best not only because we’re making what is for all intents and purposes a person, but also because this could launch all of our careers ahead several steps. After all, the better soldier this thing is, the better we’ll be thought of as its designers. Rainy, get the shield talisman. Balanced, see about getting us a repair talisman.”

March bit his lip thoughtfully, hummed, then tapped a hoof on his desk for attention. Once everypony looked his way, he gave each of them a serious look. “Can we really call what we’re building a person? Yes, it’s a learning system, but learning alone doesn't make a person. I can teach a dog to do almost anything via learning. For all we know we’re making the mechanical equivalent of an animal. Or maybe all it’s good at is replicating what it sees, making it a robot that can improve itself, but still just a robot.”

Rivet nodded thoughtfully. “Mhm, all good points. But we need to prep for the worst case scenario, which is to create a person.”

Balanced nodded in agreement and swiveled his chair to look directly at March. “I helped Rivet make the proof of concept. It’s got the processing power, data storage, and complexity to house a pony mind. Trust me, I’d know. I helped out on the Robobrain project. This thing could make those ethical nightmares obsolete.”

“Is that why you’re on this project?” Rainy asked with a tilt of her head. “I for one would love to see ponies stop chucking animal brains in jars to have their slightly better robots.”

“You’re Luna-damned right it is,” Balanced said gruffly as he swiveled to face Rainy, and drop two more bits into the bucket. “Fun fact, the project’s trying to get it to work with pony brains last I heard. We need to put the kibosh on that before they start using prisoners to test the mark threes or something.”

“Long story short, March,” Rivet said as he began to fidget with his pipbuck. “There’s a chance we’ll make a person, so we need to proceed as if we’re going to do just that. If we make a body suited for a person, it won't matter if we put something lesser in it. If we make a body suited for any old robot, or an animal intelligence, and we put a person into it… We’re monsters. Hooves down.”

March mmmed again, nodded, then sat back in his chair, bumping into his desk. “Point taken… Alright. On our budget there’s no way we’re making an Equoid. We’d have to invent ninety percent of the systems from scratch. That means we’re limited to a robot that looks like a pony, and presumably can do anything we’d want a pony soldier to do, but no full on simulation of a pony with fake breathing, fake pulse, and all that sci-fi crap. What’s the minimum bar for acceptability here? We’ll need to let it speak, hear, gesture… What else is critical?”

Rivet paused as he considered March’s admittedly astute point. He leaned back in his chair, nearly bumping into his terminal’s screen before remembering just how close it was.

“That’s a good point, March. I’m certain everypony here is familiar with the theory of Embodied Cognition.” Rivet said just to make absolutely sure his other two team members knew it as well.

Nods were had all around. The theory had been taught to the entire engineering staff by a MoI official when Lyra Machine and Tool had accepted a contract to produce gasmasks and optics for those gasmasks.

The representative had done their best to show them just how important it was that the masks permit the use of facial expression and ear-movements within specific minimum ranges. The general idea was the body and mind, being connected, shaped and molded each other. If you reduced a pony’s capabilities, you’d also subtly alter their conscious mind.

While this would be a temporary adjustment with a mask that a pony could put on and take off, certain key communication abilities had to be preserved to prevent ponies from “unpersoning” anypony wearing the masks. Rivet still remembered the official’s anecdote about a fireteam who let six wounded poneis die simply because they couldn’t see their faces, and therefore were unable to empathise with the wounded and trapped soldiers enough to risk their own lives to save them.

“I don’t think we should do more than the bare minimum, even if we can afford too,” March said as he struggled to scoot his chair over for just a little more shoulder room. “Ultimately, the idea of an AI-Driven soldier has merit, but they are still a machine. They are replaceable, repairable, and can be salvaged.”

March stopped scooting, giving up on finding a comfortable place to sit with a frustrated sigh. “Those are all things we cannot do for organic soldiers unless the Ministries lift the ban on necromancy. While this thing may turn out to be a person, it’s still different from a pony in key ways. If we make it look and act too much like a pony, soldiers may risk their lives to protect it and die for it... Negating the entire point of a robotic warrior.”

Rainy growled and leaned forward, making her old wooden dining chair creak. “Hey, dumbass, you know what soldiers need in order to function properly? Trust, teamwork, and communication. The Assault Pony baseline models are going to have no faces. But they still have a pony shape and move like ponies. They are going to unnerve most ponies. Slip one of those into a squad and it's going to have issues working properly because everypony is creeped out and worried about something they should trust.”

March snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and ponies are pretty darn good at equopomorphizing things. Do you have any idea how many soldiers name their squad’s Mister Gutsy? There’s even a Captain who awarded a medal to one. Nothing major, just some valor commendation. If a sphere with three legs and some lamps for eyes will be treated like that we don’t have to do much to get ponies to trust and care for our robot.”

Rainy nodded twice and leaned forward in her chair. “Sure, March. I know about that. But it’s not an acceptable level of communication for a person-level intelligence. Yes, a pony is very good at ascribing pony traits to non-ponies, even inanimate objects… Buuuuut, and this is a big smelly but, they’re not too good at doing the same thing for themselves if something’s not normal about their body. Everypony probably remembers some social misunderstanding as a foal that devastated them, maybe even traumatized them.”

Rainy scratched her chair to the left to get a better view of March past the hanging robotic legs. “Also, the closer to a pony something actually looks, the more ponies expect it to do. One of those little vacuum cleaner robots is easily treated like a beloved pet by a pony, but the animatronic ponies at those foals restaurants creep out adults something fierce! Why? Because it’s too close to a pony while lacking key features of a pony.”

Rivet nodded in agreement. “Right, and think about it from the perspective of a pony. What if your face was suddenly paralyzed? What if you couldn’t smile, or frown, or show worry with an expression? How would that make you feel? We need our robot to be able to communicate without words, not just for self-image purposes, but because soldiers use silent gestures and facial movements to communicate tactical information. Not everypony knows that, but it is a thing.”

Rivet did his best to remain expressionless after talking about something his finance had told him. She’d used silent tactical gestures in public to flirt and communicate simple ideas for pranks to play on her friends. Rivet still remembered most of their code.

March sighed, let his ears droop, and hung his head in defeat. “Okay, I can see that too. But we still have a budget to work with. It will take tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands just to make a system for ears that can pose correctly. We’re looking at about a million to develop an expressions subsystem, let alone the custom sculpts for a face and the like. Can we afford that?”

Rivet hummed and tapped his hoof against this pipbuck thoughtfully before looking up to Balanced. “Any opinion on this?”

“Yeah. We need to do expressions. Fortunately, I have a solution,” Balanced remarked as he casually levitated a pen to fidget with it.

“We can make something like… Well…” his cheeks flushed before he set his pen down and cleared his throat. “I don’t own one, but some friends of mine do. See, there’s some very cheap robots out there, they’re about forty thousand bits. They're uh… Basically animated sex dolls. They have a face, but it’s not trying to replicate a pony’s face. It’s kind of like a stylized comic book character’s face. Ceramic with a silicone cover that deforms to show expressions. It’s still pony in shape, but just enough for you to get the idea of the emotion it's expressing. We could buy one of those bots and rig the face up to our unit. That would allow for some non-verbal communication, some ability to express emotions nonverbally, but also wouldn’t make ponies think of them as a pony due to being still machine-like. More importantly it should avoid the creepy factor for most ponies since they are designed to be, uh... attractive looking.”

Rivet had not been expecting that response of all things. He, and the others, stared at the muscular unicorn wide eyed for several long minutes, during which Balanced added. “Oh! We could also use its ear and tail servos. That’s important for body language too.”

Rivet cleared his throat and unarched his brow. “Balanced… Do you really want to staple sex-bot parts we get at some back ally dealer’s “establishment” onto a war machine?”

“No,” Balanced admitted bashfully.

Everypony sighed in relief. Then Balanced sighed in defeat.

“But the parts I am referring to would suit our needs well enough, and we’re on a very tight budget,” Balanced said with a serious look in his eyes. “March is right about the cost to develop that ourselves. It would take us more than one-point-six-mill to design and manufacture those parts for ourselves. It’s not like I am suggesting we put the uh… for play parts on it. Just the face and tail... Oh, and ears too.”

Rainy raised a hoof to object, then put it down. “He’s right. If we count the firmware development and hardware linkups we’ll need to make, we could still get it done for less than the two-hundred thousand minimum anything like that would take us to develop.”

Rivet nodded once then turned around and started to type into the project’s log. “Okay, then… We’ll get one and implement its emotion-communicating components. Because, well, it’s cheap, and we really do need to make sure it can communicate like we do.”

“Wait,” March said with a little frown. “If we’re buying a sex bot to scrap parts from—”

Balance smirked then offered March a goofy looking grin. “It’s okay. You can keep the plot end.”

March glared at Balanced, then stood up slowly to look at his co-workers one by one. “Har. Har. Look, if we’re doing that, it means our robot will have either a stallion or mare’s face. We’ll have to pick a sex for it to match its looks. If we’re really worried about the whole mind-shaped-by-body theory, we’ll need to make sure to set up the seed for this thing to think of itself as male or female based on what we give it. Trust me, we don’t want to cripple this thing with gender dysmorphia. It may be bad enough to be a robot, let alone a robot that doesn't feel like it is how we made it appear to be.”

Everypony paused what they were doing, and slowly looked to March. He’d made his point with such conviction and passion that he had to have some form of personal experience with that particular issue.

Rivet and Balanced eventually nodded to themselves, concluding March must have had experience with a friend or a family member in that condition, and chose not to pry. Rainy, on the other hoof, due to just how personal of an issue it was, and her proclivity to spend her evenings in certain minority orientated bars, her mind led her to a certain off the wall conclusion.

“Wait… Did— Did you...” Rainy asked as her face twisted into a confused little frown. “Uh… You know…”

March’s ears laid back in irritation. “No!” He said as firmly as anypony would expect. “I used to have a sister. Now I have a brother. I grew up with somepony who went through that. I know just how bad everything is for them. Trust me, we can’t do that to anything that might be a person.“

“Ah,” Rivet said as he turned back to typing. “Okay. I’ve made a note of that. We should do our best to prevent that and other psychological disorders.”

Rainy blinked as an idea flashed through her mind. “Wait… That’s true, but… Maybe that means we should include the fun parts, as Balanced called them.”

“W— Why?” everypony else asked in unison as they all turned towards the programmer.

Rainy sheepishly blushed and tapped her hooves together. “Wwwweeelll….” she coughed to do her best to clear up her blush. “I know a lot of stallions get depressed when they get older and can’t uh, preform. So, maybe—”

“I’m not putting a dildo onto a war machine,” Balanced said with a shudder.

He’d had several nightmares about automated machine gun platforms with generous packages.

“Yeah,” March said through a wince. “I know that our boys like to go to the local brothels and collect every venereal disease there is, but we’re making a soldier. Not a robot meant for lonely ponies.”

Rivet nodded very firmly. “Yeah I’m inclined to agree. I think that’s crossing the line.”

Rainy huffed and crossed her forelegs over the barrel. “Guys, be a little more mature! Soldiers are not just fighting machines, they are people too,” she objected, going as far as to stand up to rest her forehooves on the central workbench.

“It’s going to be watching them, and improving itself, right?” she continued. “It’s going to see that soldiers have loved ones. If it doesn't have emotions, it may eventually conclude it's not able to perform its job as a soldier due to lacking the physical ability to form a romantic relationship. That could cause performance issues, the military kind. We could be forcing some poor Quartermaster to spend several hours trying to get a robot to stop requesting they be issued a dick. Even worse is if it can feel emotions! I think it will be able to, and we’re already worried about it not being able to express emotions, and also avoiding psychological disorders mostly involving depression, then there’s no reason to think that it won't ever also feel positive emotions. You know. Like love.”

Rivet turned to look at each of her teammates who were watching her little speech with confused awe. He could only conclude that everypony else also felt that Rainy was being deadly serious, and turned his full attention to her argument.

Rainy uncrossed her legs and leaned forwards to emphasize her next point. “Imagine how it will look if we make a machine that, after a few months in the field, steps in front of a tank as it shoots to commit suicide because it knows that not only are the odds of anypony loving it amazingly low because its a machine, but also that even if there was such a pony they can’t do anything at all to fufill the object of their affection. That would be beyond cruel!”

The three stallions were silent for a moment, realising just how hellish a life that would be. Rainy continued to look between them, growing more and more exasperated at their silence, misconstruing it as disagreement or a refusal to see her perspective.

“I’m not saying we need to make it able to have kids!” Rainy protested. “ I’m not saying we should make it intentionally sexy. I’m just saying that interpersonal relationships are a huge part of a pony’s psychology and identity and there’s no way to shield this thing from that side of ponies once it’s in the field. Besides, we’ll have the parts to do it available already. Why waste them and cause unnecessary harm to our creation? Just having them should be enough to prevent problems.”

She huffed and sat back down with a bitter grunt. “Besides. What if the war is over during this thing’s operational lifespan? Do we really want to make a machine that can only ever be for war when that machine is also a person? Or at least functionally a person? Shouldn’t we do what we can to ensure that whatever it eventually comes to enjoy, it can at least try and pursue it?”

March shook his head slowly, then groaned. “She’s right… We— We could hide things under some armor plate that retracts. Nopony would have to know aside from anypony who wound up uh… wanting to use them.”

“Still squicks me out,” Balanced muttered to himself while staring at the floor.

Rivet raised an eyebrow at Balanced comment. “You’re the one who recommended buying a sexbot for parts.”

“Yeah, I did,” Balanced agreed. “I also think we should. It would be cruel not to, in the event we pull this off and make a person. I agree with you, I’ll help do it, but it still squicks me out. I’m entitled to my own feelings!”

March blinked, frowned, then held up a hoof for attention. “Wait, don’t their muzzles have uh, you know… capabilities.” he said with a shy flick of his tail. “We kind of already agreed to do this.”

“Yeah they do! It’s pretty good too!” Rainy said with a little smile before yelping and clamping her hooves over her mouth as her nondescript face turned bright red.

Everypony was dead silent for a few heartbeats. Then Rivet smirked. “I don’t suppose you’d donate yours to the project?”

Rainy sank down in her chair. “No… It's a deluxe model. Expensive...” she murmured quietly.

“You do know that even if we make it a stallion once we switch it on, it won't necessarily like you, right?” Balanced asked with a teasing grin.

“Four points to Balanced,” March commented teasingly.

Rainy huffed and flicked her mane out of her eyes. “I’m not here because I’m lonely and want a smarter doll.” she said with finality.

“I don’t think you are,” Rivet agreed politely. “You have a good point, it just took us a little bit for us to see it.”

She nodded in response, but felt the need to continue her point regardless. After all, the other two stallions had said nothing.

“I’m here because I want the opportunity to help build our first proper AI so I can make sure that it’s done more right than wrong,” Rainy straightened herself up, making her poor chair creak in protest once more. “I’m with Rivet in that we’re creating a person who will serve the sole purpose of being a warrior, but there’s more to being a warrior than fighting. Warriors need something to fight for. Something other than a country or an idea. They need a lover, or a family, or a tribe. Something to champion. Without it, you’ll never get an effective warrior. Just read a history book.”

Balanced tipped back slightly, his eyes widening just a bit. “Huh… Guys, she’s right about that. I guess I never thought about it like that. Okay, yeah. We need to uh… Include those parts. Maybe even train it a little bit in how families work, too. At least enough for it to understand friends are important to have.”

Rivet nodded in agreement and went back to typing. “Good points, Rainy. I’m putting it in the project log…” he finished typing then read the list. “Oookay. We have social and personal modifications to the chassis for psychological health. We have a repair and shield talisman to source and add in for durability. That’s person-assisting and defensive goals… We do need to build the chassis itself on our budget, let’s overestimate costs a bit and assume this will take half of what we’ve got. What do we do for offense?”

The four thought quietly for some time. It wasn’t an easy question. The entire point behind the Assault Pony robot was the ability to use most if not all existing weapons, vehicles, tools, and facilities just like any Equestrian would. The Zebrican models were capable as an Earth Pony or Zebra, save for a lack of any natural magic. A small shame, as robotic crop-boosters would most certainly make a company a fortune.

After several long moments, Balanced began to smile. “Guys… I have an idea, and best of all it will be free.”

“What is it?” Rivet asked looking up from fidgeting with his pipbuck thoughtfully.

“A while ago, I was dating this stallion. Good guy, but we didn’t work out,” Balanced said with an annoyed grunt. “He was a pegasus, and most of the things in my home are designed for unicorns. I was considering proposing, so I bought a telekinesis talisman which was going to serve as a proposal present, but he broke things off instead. I still have it because it was expensive as hell and I figured I’d run into the same problem eventually… Don’t ever seem to attract other unicorns.”

Balanced stood up and stretched his hindlegs as much as the small lab permitted. “Just say the word, Rivet, and I’ll pop home and grab it. We slap it on our robot and it would be able to use telekinesis. That’s a major tactical advantage that’s in the spirit of the robot’s main design.”

March’s eyes lit up. “Even better! It’s an Equestrian twist on what is at its core a Zebrican design! I love it!” He smirked and rubbed his hooves together. “Nice and subversive! Suck on that, stripes!”

Rivet smiled, laughed, then nodded to Balanced. “Do it! We can mount the talisman in the forehead, and if I remember how that thing looked when I helped you pick it out, it could be made flush with the forehead. No need for a horn.”

“It would retain the ability to use equipment designed for any pony!” Rainy exclaimed with a delighted smile. “Oh that’s cool! Practical magic without the need for a hole or socket in the helmet. The military will like that. Ten points for Balanced!”

Balanced stood up and cleared off a small spot on his workbench. While it was already clean and tidy, he felt he had to do something while cooped up in such a small space.

“Of course, we are forgetting one thing,” Balanced said as he moved a few of his tools closer to his calcinator. “This person has an intended purpose. They are to be a soldier. We can’t just set them up with basic pony instincts, create them as an individual, then tell them “by the way, you exist to kill and die”. That’s crossing an ethical line.”

He finished tidying up his tools and looked across his desk for more work to do. “We need to include base programming that makes it not just be okay with fighting and dying, but also have a desire to serve. If we don’t ensure it wants to do what we want it to do, at best we’re conscripting somepony… Or at least, something. Worst case…”

Balance paused and looked to his coworkers to make sure they were paying attention. “Worst case, we’ve committed an act of mind control. We are not Zebras. We must not force something to do something against its will.”

Rivet, Rainy, and March winced before nodding in agreement.

Rainy cleared her throat. “Well, yes. Obviously… But how do we do that ethically? Isn’t setting up something’s will in the first place a form of mind control?”

March shrugged and spun in his chair for a moment to think. His attempt was interrupted by a metal hoof to the back of the head, several seconds of cussing, and the clinking of coins being added to the bucket.

Rivet tapped his hoof on his desk in thought, then sighed. “I don’t think it’s possible to do everything ethically. At least, not by Equestrian ethics. Ethics are not universal… Each culture makes their own. The Griffons are said to be using cloning technology to produce soldiers for their warfront. I don’t know if that’s true, but the Griffon-Equestrians I’ve talked to about it think I’m crazy for having issues with creating people to die. To them, it’s creating someone whose life is nothing but honor.”

Rainy shook her head firmly and held up a hoof. “No, no, no… I don’t care what they would think about this,” she put her hood down and squirmed in her seat. “I don’t mean that in a speciesist way. I mean… Look, if we can't justify our actions within our own culture’s code of conduct, haven't the zebras won a small victory?”

March stopped spinning, having clearly failed the lesson he’d been taught moments before. A concussion check would have been wise, but there was no time. “She’s right. I know a few ways we could theoretically set the seed for this thing to develop from. I’m sure you two programmers know more, or how to make them work properly… So we can do this. But is it okay? We can still abort this project at this point. Once we start this thing, since it could become a person, we won't be able to stop it.”

“Actually, that’s incorrect,” Balanced remarked casually as he rearranged his gem-engraving kit. “If we're treating this like a foal, just in case it does work as we hope, then if there’s any sign of defect greater than 3.4 Redhearts it would be ethical to abort it.”

Rainy frowned and looked up from her notebook. “Redhearts?”

“A scale used for measuring the suffering caused by a disability in a developing fetus. Some nurse in Ponyville invented it. It seems callous, but it’s rating things like “Born without legs and also a natural resistance to transmutation magic rendering limb-generation via magic impossible”. The point where the individual's life would be more struggle than pleasure is a Three. A three point four is when that struggle would cause significant pain and suffering. An example of that is the birth defect where the foal sweats uh… well, sewage.” Balance summarized for her.

Rivet’s face twisted into a disgusted grimace. “Gah! That can happen?!”

“Yeah, a friend of mine had an abortion because the fetus would have had it and doctors couldn’t fix it in utero,” Balanced muttered bitterly as memories of the foal announcement party, then later the sobbing couple flashed through his mind.

“Point is, our ethics are more flexible than most ponies think. We’re at war and our survival is on the line,” Balanced turned around and gestured to the hanging Zebrican robot chassis in front of all four ponies. “The enemy is throwing that thing at us. If they break through the trenches, they do not spare civilians. Not ‘til their officers tell them to stop. This is not just a war. It’s a fight for survival.”

Balanced returned to his seat and sat down with a sigh. “The Ministries decided that the ever diminishing pegasi volunteer force was not enough, and that a draft of the eldest of each Pegasus family was not only acceptable, but necessary. If our country has decided it is necessary under these circumstances to make ponies become soldiers under the force of law, which, I remind you, is ultimately backed up by physical force, well, then… We’re doing something ethical by creating a soldier from scratch.”

He sighed one last time and looked up at the ceiling. “In fact, we’re being more ethical than the draft, as we have the ability to ensure that our soldier likes what they do and wants to be there.”

Rivet drew a long breath in over his teeth, then let it out slowly. “I— I can't argue with that. Can anypony else?”

March shook his head no. Rainy nodded.

“I— I can,” she said hesitantly. “I disagree with the draft. I know how important air superiority is, but that front is a meatgrinder. It’s unethical to send ponies to what amounts to their grave. I mean, buck! We built that huge weather control array thing just to be able to send even more of them to their deaths!”

Rivet nodded solemnly. “Yes. And if our pilot project is successful, we can go back and develop a flight-capable version, and fewer ponies will have to die to keep us from zebrican camps.”

March looked into Rainy’s eyes with a cold, serious, hate filled look. Rainy could tell the hate wasn't directed at her, but it creeped her out nonetheless.

“You know that, as an Equestrian mare, if you were captured by Zebra forces, they’d cut out your ovaries, right?” March said bitterly. “They’d sterilize you, dye stripes into your fur, and “reeducate” you into serving traditional female zebra gender roles.”

Rainy snorted and waved a hoof. “That’s propaganda. Besides, joke’s on them if that were true. I was born without ovaries.” Rainy kicked a rear hoof shyly. “That’s why I like to make robots. And why I wanted to be here. This is as close to having a foal as I’ll ever get.”

Rivet raised an eyebrow. “It is? Then… I’m sorry but I may have to kick you from the team. That seems like a conflict of interest.”

Rainy shook her head immediately and gave Rivet a terrified look. Her eyes caught Lab J’s dim light and glinted green as she looked into Rivet’s eyes.

“It’s not!” Rainy insisted firmly and passionately. “I’d be proud to raise children who were sent to fight in this war. A soldier is an honorable profession, even if you disagree with the reasons for a war. Not saying I think we should let the Zebras win. Just saying that even if we were doing all of this over a single specific bucket or something, that anypony who volunteers to die to keep others safe is a noble and honorable soul. My only objection is to saying that the draft is ethical because the government said so. I have no problems with building a soldier, so long as that isn’t all they are. So long as they can be more if they wish to be.”

Rivet frowned, nodded slowly, then rubbed the side of his head. “Uh… okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. You can stay.”

“Good,” Rainy murmured, looking down at her notebook.

March nodded and thumped his hoof against his leg in agreement. “Rainy’s got another point. There are military families, generations of soldiers serving Equestria because that’s what the family does. It’s okay to raise a kid to be a soldier, so it’s okay to make a robot to be one. I say we go for it. Maybe it's a bit unethical, but we’re at war. I’d like less ponies to die and theoretically our robot could be restored from a backup file. There’s no risk to—”

March stopped, his eyes lit up as an idea occurred to him. “Oh! Hey, pegasi! Think we could get our hooves on a Flight Talisman?”

Rivet and Balanced laughed at the proposal. March coughed awkwardly. “Yeah, point… Those are stupid expensive.”

“They sure are,” Rivet said as he nodded for a final time. “Okay, we’re all set for the basics then. Balanced, you go get the TK talisman, then get the MWT on the phone and see if we can get a spare repair talisman. Rainy, get a hold of your SkyTech rep and see if that offer is still valid. March, it's up to you to pick up our uh, toy. I’ll get a workstation ready to strip the parts we need from that thing so we can analyze it right away to make the adapters to fix it to the chassis we’ll be given by manufacturing. Once that’s done I’ll see about getting a book on the psychology of war and what makes a good soldier and start coding up the seed. Let’s get to it!”

☢★★◯★★☢

Several weeks passed, and work progressed well enough. The civilian robot was discreetly purchased from Robronco by Rainy, after March became too flustered to go pick one up. A male model was chosen simply because there was a sale on them at the time. Lyra Machine and Tool’s manufacturing department had been ready for the production run for a week before Project Microcosm began, which meant the team had Chassis 117 in their lab within seven business days.

The biggest time sink in physical matters had been adapting the face, ears, and tail from the civilian robot to the Assault Pony chassis. Balanced spent many a day with angle and die grinders working on the chassis itself. Armored plates needed to be cut, reshaped, and have recesses carved into them for the sake of fitting the parts cleanly. That was only half the work as well, for internal circuits and matrices had to be created to run the hardware. The civilian crystals simply wouldn’t do for military tech.

The talismans proved hard to incorporate as well. A repair talisman was sourced only after Balanced had been told no, only to later get a call from one Commander Solemn Creed. The Commander heard his Lieutenant talking about the request and the project and had chosen to provide a little extra funding as well as a repair talisman, due to taking personal interest in the idea of a properly teachable robotic warrior.

The extra funding proved invaluable. SkyTech had been more than happy to provide a demo shield talisman. What Rainy had not known was the demo talismans were hardwired to activate three times and three times only. Fortunately with the extra money from Commander Creed, sourcing a full production unit proved to be possible without losing too much of their limited budget.

As an added bonus, March found an old magical field conducting array laying in a store room gathering dust. With a little bit of diagnostic magic, and his talent at retrofitting technology, the array was made to be sufficient to power all of the robot’s magical systems at once. So long as it could remain still while doing so and didn’t output that much power for more than a dozen or so seconds.

Cooling systems can only be pushed so far, and there was no room left in the chassis to upgrade the radiators. Not with everything the ponies had packed into it already.

Eventually, Experimental Unit J-117’s body was made whole. In spite of its furless, silicone skinned, hardened ceramic face and the exposed robotic armored chassis, the body made all four ponies think of a Steel Ranger with their helmet off, but the hood raised. Balance in particular insisted it looked exactly like a character from a Neighponese comic book that an ex-marefriend of his had liked to read before the Zebrican blockade cut off imports.

Balance brought in one of the issues she had left behind to show everypony. They’d agreed.

If you squinted a little, you could just barely mistake the smooth face for one covered in short fur. Their creation looked much like a white furred, amber maned, amber eyed stallion, clad in a sleek form-fitting power suit; while wearing a small black oval shaped jewel on their forehead like some exotic cultures living on the islands far out to sea were said to.

The look was so similar to the comic book’s general aesthetic Rivet decided to paint the armor plates the same dark emerald green as the main character’s armor, as seen on the book’s cover. White, dark emerald, amber, and black. It fit well.

With the body finished, work on the mind could progress much faster. Balanced and March worked together to craft the unit’s Neuro-Oracular Computer while Rivet and Rainy set about programming the starting seed.

The two debated constantly over what to include. Weeks went by with highlighted pages from books like The Art of War, I Want to be a Soldier, One Spell Away, On Killing, and a dozen other books about the realities of a soldier’s life, military strategy, and general psychology pinned to the walls. An entire day could be filled with a single argument about the importance of including a particular idea in the seed.

Not everything could be included, both for space limitations and for the need to create something that would enjoy things other than killing. Nopony wanted to create a psychopathic military robot, but nopony could agree on how to ensure a good soldier would be created while avoiding the obvious problem of making it like fighting too much.

In spite of the endless debates, piece by piece, the seed was created, finished and uploaded to the robot’s firmware crystals. It took a lot of extra time to get it done. The project may not have had an official deadline, but the budget would eventually run out, and nopony knew how long it would take to train their creation.

Nopony questioned Rainy staying behind after hours to work on the seed more. Not even when she seemed to have spent all night working, and went through the next day dreary eyed and groggy.

The mare was above suspicion. Her small tweaks here and there went unquestioned. Nopony had any reason to suspect Rainy had her own agenda. Why would they? Rivet had no prior experience as a manager. He had no training. He couldn’t see the signs.

Rainy was an expert programmer and dedicated to the project. Her history with Lyra Machine and Tool went back years, her MoM record was sparkling clean, and she’d contributed more brilliant ideas to the company in her five year career than a single pony typically would in their lifetime.

If she wasn’t the very image of a patriotic Equestrian computer-scientist with a brilliant life ahead of her, then what was she?