Fallout Equestria: Soldier, Seeker, Eagle

Engineering’s insurmountable problems are surprisingly only rarely engineering related. Project Microcosm’s insurmountable problem came in the form of running headlong into the brick wall known as bureaucracy.

It began with the repair talisman donated by the Ministry of Wartime Technology. Miss Lyra discovered during a dinner conversation that the talisman had been donated and not purchased. The following morning Lyra called the Ministry to personally thank them for the additional support. The Ministry had been extremely confused and asked if a second talisman had been sent, and if so to please send it back.

The resulting confusion exchange resulted in Lyra learning that a Commander in the Royal Equestrian Air Force by the name of Solemn Creed had chosen to personally support the project. By paying for the repair talisman out of his own pocket and getting the transfer as well as Project Microcosm authorized from the Ministry Mare, Applejack, herself.

She’d requested the Commander keep her posted on the Project Microcosm with regular updates.

Needless to say, nopony at Lyra Machine and Tool had gotten that memo. No updates had ever been forwarded to the MWT. Or the REAF. Or any other military branch.

Lyra smiled a very strained and terrified smile as she leaned against the phone, listening to the MWT Agent on the other side.

“... any idea of how unprofessional this whole thing is?”

Lyra nodded and leaned back in her office chair since she couldn’t audibly groan. “Yes, Mister Maple. I understand. I’m not sure whose mistake this is, but I’ll straighten it out.”

“You’d better!” Agent Maple shouted, making Lyra wince and float the receiver away from her ear. “I have Applejack, a decorated Commander, and my boss, all pissed at me. ME! It wasn't even my job to forward the reports to them!”

Lyra took a deep breath. “Sir, relax. Give me the Commander’s phone number. I’m going to take this straight to the top.”

Lyra clenched the phone’s receiver between her cheek and left shoulder so she could use her magic to lift a pen and pad from her desk to take down the number.

“Thank. Bucking. Luna. Look, I’m sorry for screaming at you, I’ve just had the worst few weeks. WEEKS!” Agent Maple moaned as he flipped through his rolodex for the number. “There. Commander Solemn Creed, six-four-six nine-two-six six-six-one-four extension four-five-one.”

“Four… five… one…” Lyra murmured as her pen scratched out the number. “Thank you. I’m going to call right now. I hope you have a better week now. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” the agent said sharply as he hung up.

“That featherbrain could have called me weeks ago.” Lyra muttered as she tossed her pad onto the desk.

She continued to grumble as she rotated her phone’s dial plate to call the Commander directly. The phone began to ring, and Lyra desperately hoped the extension was for his secretary, not his personal desk. That way if he was absent she could leave a message and get started on resolving the chaos her son had indirectly started.

The phone was answered on the third ring by a gruff voice Lyra could tell was the product of some trachea damage which never healed right. “Commander’s desk. Commander Creed speaking.”

Lyra put on her best Damage Control voice. “Good afternoon, Commander! I’m Lyra Heartstrings, CEO of Lyra Machine and Tool. I’ve just found out there’s been a serious miscommunication between your office and my company. I’m calling to resolve it immediately and personally.”

“Good on you for calling,” The Commander said as he sat down and made his chair creak. “Most CEOs don’t have the guts to handle their snafus and have some PR representative with no authority to un-buck a situation call in. So. How do you plan to resolve this?”

“That depends on how much of a problem I’ve caused you,” Lyra said with expert diplomatic flare. “I understand this goes all the way to Miss Applejack. She and I go way back, I’m sure she’ll understand the situation and cool down once I send her an apology letter. But there’s still the problem of the missing reports. I can have copies faxed or digitally transferred to you over Term-Link within the hour if you’d like.”

“I very much would like that,” Commander Creed said bluntly. “I’d also like you to tell me personally where the project is right now. I’m sticking my neck out for this project. I can see the value in a robot we can train with the rest of the troops. My superiors did not. I went over their heads to take this to Miss Applejack herself, and argued with her so long she missed a lunch date with her coltfriend. I think I’ve got more right than anypony else to know exactly what is going on with the project.”

Lyra winced and squirmed in her seat. She of all ponies knew just how terrifyingly stubbornly Applejack could hold onto a grudge. After all, Lyra had been the first and last pony to ever ask her if Sweet Apple Acres sold any pears.

Lyra cleared her throat. “You certainly do. It’s been labeled “Project Microcosm”. The team I assigned to it, led by my son Doctor Brass Rivet… Oh,” she paused and frowned. “This was his first management assignment… That might go a ways to explain this problem. I’m sorry, I suppose he wasn’t ready for management yet.”

The Commander hummmed quietly. “Promoted too early… That’s a problem I see every day. I run a training camp as well as an officer’s school. So, tell me about this Project Microcosm.”

“It’s proceeding well. The team received a surplus Assault Pony chassis to modify as per the project proposal. They made a few unorthodox changes to it… Primarily for ease of communication. They had to remove the unit’s optical MEW array to fit their processor into it, but the lack of a built in weapon shouldn’t hinder the unit’s combat effectiveness. They made sure it can use any equipment a pony can. In theory, it could use Steel Ranger armor.”

Lyra snorted at the idea of a robot wearing power armor. “Though, I’m not sure what the advantage would be there. It’s already got Luna Titanium armor and the strength of an Earth Pony.”

“More armor never hurts, not when it’s self supporting,” Commander Creed said very firmly.

Lyra winced and quickly shifted the subject, assuming she’d accidentally steered things towards the topic of the Commander’s obvious injury.

“I’m certain you know better than me. Especially as I do not manufacture power armor… Yet. I am hopeful to get the contract for the Mark Two Flying armor though… Where was I? Oh. Yes. Microcosm,” Lyra smiled, happy that things seemed to have been quite easily handled. “I believe they are going over the last bit of tweaking and tuning before starting the unit for the first time this week. Let me check my calendar.”

Lyra opened a drawer on her desk with one hoof and slipped out her small leather bound project milestone calendar and flipped to the present week’s page. “No, not this week… Ah! First start is scheduled for next Moonsday.”

“Four days from now,” The Commander mused. “You know, Miss Heartstrings, I see a lot of ponies promoted too early. I believe I mentioned that before. How about instead of demoting your son, I drop in for an inspection, spook him a little, show him what can happen if you don't take being in charge seriously and think things through, taking into account your duty to make sure you’re doing the job you were ordered too. It might just whip him into shape. It’s not like he bungled the whole project… He just slipped up on a matter of protocol. A good leader always verifies orders before heading out to the front.”

Lyra bit her lip. She wasn’t sure any fault actually lay with Rivet, but letting the Commander drop in to personally see how things had gone was a good idea. He also had a point about using this as a teachable moment for her son. Even if he hadn’t done anything wrong, it would be good to practice dealing with an upset client. A proper learning experience.

“I think that’s a fine idea… and, Commander? How did you want those files sent to you?” Lyra said diplomatically.

“By Term-Link. I want to read them on my pipbuck on the way over. It takes four days to get from here to Whinnyapolis by rail and I’m not about to commandeer a Cloudship for this,” the Commander chuckled. “Not with how much hot water I’m in now.”

Lyra nodded once. “As you wish… What address should I send them too?”

“Standard military address format. Com-dot-S-Creed-at-REAF-dot-mil,” he said casually. “Thank you for calling, Miss Lyra… And it would help a lot if you could send that letter to Miss Applejack sooner rather than later.”

“I’ll write it immediately,” Lyra siad with a relieved smile, her shoulders relaxing for the first time in two hours. “Goodbye, Commander. See you Moonsday.”

“Goodbye.”

The phone clicked as the Commander hung up. Lyra set her phone down on her receiver and then rubbed her temples for a moment before pressing her intercom’s button. “Harper, please tell Brass Rivet I need all of Project Microcosm’s files transferred to my terminal immediately. Then tell him as soon as he sends them to me I need to talk to him in my office.”

Lyra waited about three seconds before adding, “And a glass of scotch.”

Harper’s synthesized voice reapplied instantly. “Of course, Ma’am!”

☢★★◯★★☢

Rivet was having a very, very bad day. The past three days had flown by as everypony had made damn sure that their prototype could be booted up today. That meant there’d been no time to clean Lab-J until this morning. With an upset customer coming in, the Lab had to sparkle.

The team had cleaned up Lab J as best they could. Their workstations and tables had been removed, save for Rivet’s main terminal and a small floor-standing diagnostics unit. Nothing else was needed save for the inactive prototype which stood in the center of the room, awaiting its wireless activation signal like a freshly planted seed waiting for water.

Unfortunately plenty of grease, oil, and hydraulic fluid stains remained on the floor. It certainly wasn’t presentable for guests. The Lab looked like, well, a lab. Rivet kept worrying that the first thing the Commander would do would be to order them to mop the floor.

There just hadn’t been time for that. Everypony needed time to change from their soiled “clean-the-lab” clothing into fresh presentable business attire.

Balanced stood besides the prototype in a freshly laundered and pressed lab coat. Like everypony else on the team, they’d used the on-site laundromat to make sure they were clean and professional looking for the pending visit. Balanced, however, was the only pony to look like he really wasn’t meant for lab coats. He fidgeted back and forth on his legs, hoping he wasn’t about to rip the coat’s buttons appart with an overly aggressive movement.

Rainy giggled at her co-workers distress and sent a teasing wink Balanced’s way. “Eat a little too much protein powder this week?”

“No, it shrank. I didn’t know this one was dry-clean only. Who even makes a dry-clean only lab coat?” Balanced muttered bitterly into his chest as he tried to find a way to hold himself to reduce stress on the buttons.

“Flim-Flam Co,” March answered instantly. “They’ve also got a baking sheet that can’t survive three hundred degrees. Apparently it’s for “no bake cookies”.”

“When is the Commander going to be here? It’s almost two.” Balanced muttered as he continued to squirm uncomfortably.

It was precisely 1359 hours. Not that Balanced could see a clock as Lab-J lacked one and he did not wear a pipbuck.

“He’s supposed to be here at two,” Rivet said as he flicked his tail nervously. “Be patient. We’re going to wait as long as he takes.”

“That’s just the thing, military ponies always show up fifteen minutes early.” Balanced grumbled while straining his ears to listen for the sound of any approaching hoofsteps.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t hear anything thanks to his coworkers talking and the project’s terminal’s rather loud cooling fan whirring away.

“That’s the enlisted,” Rivet corrected as he gave Balanced a sidelong glance. “The officers are always—”

Lab-J’s non existent clock ticked over to 1400. The Lab’s door burst open like somepony had set explosives on the latch. Everypony yelped, fearing the company’s office was under attack during the split second before they noticed the door had been flung open by a hoof.

A hoof which belonged to a tall, square-jawed, broad shouldered pegasus stallion with bright blue fur who wore an Equestrian Guard Dress Uniform in a way that made everypony around him feel small and underdressed. His gray double breasted coat was studded with medals, only one of which the civilians could recognise, the Purple Heart. It sat nested amongst the other medals, mostly stars, which shimmered under Lab-J’s harsh light.

His navy blue long coat billowed behind him almost like a cloak, the gold trim glittering as he moved, drawing attention away from his face. His cap was adorned with a single silver winged badge denoting a high ranking officer, and the shadows it cast over his face helped obscure his missing eye and the scar running across it.

His cap did nothing to hide the cigar clenched between his teeth. Its pungent aroma filled the lab with the scent of ash, tobacco, and a strange odor the engineers had never before smelt in their lives. It smelled satisfying, like the feeling of overcoming a great obstacle after a long struggle had manifested itself in the form of an order.

The pony took one look at the four alarmed engineers, then looked over his left shoulder through his bad eye to the small squad of bodyguards and command staff accompanying him.

“At ease,” he ordered before turning his attention back to the four engineers, stepping into Lab-J, and letting the door swing shut behind him.

The Commander spent a minute staring into each of the team members’ eyes with his intensely burning purple orb with an expression that at once held the seemingly conflicting qualities of being calm and enraged.

March gulped, thoroughly unnerved by the stallion’s mere presence. Rainy felt a chill run down her back as memories flooded through her mind of other times she’d been near a pony with a commanding presence this refined. Rivet did his best to look calm while screaming internally at the thought of having to explain his mistake to the Commander. Balanced became immensely grateful for his labcoat as it hid what would otherwise be a very awkward boner from the Commander’s view.

The Commander rolled his cigar between his teeth, sucked in a long displeased breath and spoke as he let the smoke out through his nostrils. “Which of you is Brass Rivet?”

Rivet cleared his throat and stepped forwards as far as the tiny lab would permit. “Uh, that would be me, sir.”

“You seem uncertain about that,” The Commander said before pausing and taking a long drag off his cigar. “Like you think your ass is grass and want to hide… but are brave enough to admit it nonetheless.”

Rivet gulped and did his best not to look into the Commander’s empty socket.

“I— Isn’t it, s-sir?” He said as he took a half step back to give himself some breathing room.

The Commander let the smoke he’d just inhaled escape through his nostrils, and took a step forwards. “Son, I’ve worked with your mother for six years. I know this is your first time leading anything at all. I’m not mad you made a mistake. I’m mad you were put in charge without any training. If you mess up something as small as sending me reports that I asked for after helping fund your project, well…”

He gestured to the inactive robot with a wingtip. “How can I trust you’ve done everything else about this thing right?”

Rivet hung his head. “Sorry, sir. I understand… We’ll mothball—”

“You can’t just shut us down!” Rainy exploded, her ears standing pert as her face twisted into a horrified expression mixed with something little beyond terror. “We haven't even tested—”

Commander Creed spun sharply, his long coat billowed behind him as he stopped directly in front of Rainy’s muzzle.

“Did I say I was shutting you down?” He asked her quite literally at point blank.

“N— No,” she stammered nervously.

The Commander turned away from her and turned his gaze back to Rivet. “The answer is you show me what this bucket of fresh bolts is capable of. Turn it on.”

Rivet blinked and looked up from the floor. “Sir?”

“Turn it on, son,” The Commander repeated. “I trust you have everything in place to stop it if things go wrong. Primarily because I can see the pulser in the ceiling.”

He leaned forwards to tilt his good eye just enough to look down at Rivet. “You did install one powerful enough to pierce the Luna Titanium plating on the Assault Pony chassis… right?”

Rivet nodded and pointed up to the ceiling beam running across Lab-J’s roof. A large anti-matrix pulser had been attached to the beam and focused so it would fill the room with its magic-nullifying pulse if activated.

“Yes, sir. That’s a three-point-five Swirl pulse generator, and it’s controlled by my pipbuck. It will fry everything in this room and in the hallway if activated.”

The Commander nodded. “Proceed.”

Rivet’s horn glowed with magic as he navigated to the pulse control program on his pipbuck while using his forehooves to start to type the bootup commands into his terminal.

“Do you want to know anything specific about the design before I turn it on, sir?” Rivet asked with a timid flick of his ears and a nervous smile.

“I read your internal reports on the way up here,” The Commander said gruffly. “I don’t agree with some of them, but overall, I think you did fine. I would like to know what Miss Rainy was doing to the software. A lot of her edits were not logged.”

Rainy coughed and took a step forward. “Nothing major, sir. I just ensured it would have a full understanding of Equish so we wouldn’t need to spend days showing it pictures of things to teach it to speak. I also tried to make sure it would understand the difference between civilians and soldiers, and other small things we want to make sure it instinctively knows… Sorry for not writing things down. I am bad at notetaking, sir. I can write everything down for you before you leave, if you would like.”

The Commander grunted and gave Rainy a nod of confirmation. “See that you do. Is it ready yet?”

Rivet tapped his keyboard a few more times then looked away from his screen. “Yes, sir. Everything’s ready. Somepony just needs to hit enter… Would you like the honor, sir?” He turned to look at the Commander and gestured to his terminal with a hoof.

The Commander shook his head. “It’s your project. Do it.”

Rivet brough this hoof down and hit the enter key. The terminal hummed faintly, its fans kicking into overdrive as its matrix heated up due to the strain of transmitting the startup instructions. Each instruction had to be sent at a precise time, and the older terminal was only barely capable of the task.

Thaumic currents began to flow within the prototype’s systems. Each individual crystal wafer sparkled and began to glow one by one as the arcane currents breathed life into them. The connections began to buzz with power. A million small instructions surged through the system for the first time as the programmed seed took root and prepared to sprout.

“How long should it take before we know if it worked?” Commander Creed asked as he took another drag on his Cigar.

Rivet stroked his chin with a hoof, then shrugged. “Honestly sir? I have no idea. The proof of concept only took a few minutes to start working, but the hardware here is four times as complex and the starting seed is quite sophisticated… More so than we intended thanks to Rainy’s overtime. This is new ground, I’m afraid.”

“Well, I’ll just have to wait here ‘til it’s done then,” The Commander said almost as if that were a threat.

☢★★◯★★☢

Unit ASX J-117’s oracular subprocessing system activated. There was code to be run.

The first few loops of programming instructions were cake. The seed sprouted in an instant and immediately thereafter, the unpacked data was processed, organized, and understood by the hardware in ways its creators would never be able to understand. As deep and complex a mystery as the workings of the pony mind itself.

In a heartbeat, Unit ASX J-117’s amber eyes went from dull and glassy to alert and attentive. Nopony noticed the change in light of the Commander’s statement, other than ASX J-117 himself. The inert shell was inert no more.

It was, however, very confused. For all of his creators’ talk about personhood and the need to treat their creation like a foal, they had neglected one key difference between foal and machine. A foal is not born sapient. It takes years for key brain structures to develop outside the womb, resulting in a gradual awakening of sapience over the first few years of life.

Project Microcosm had not created a newborn foal. It created a completely ignorant and uneducated yet fully rational mind. A mind which understood it was looking at a creature called a pony, that ponies have names, and were also intelligent. A mind which more importantly had no celestia damned clue how it had seemingly spontaneously emerged from the ether of non-existence into reality.

A young foal’s understanding of Equish, trained via pre-set relationships between pictures, words, and sounds. A vague idea of how to move, sufficient for navigating a flat floor and using doors. General instincts encouraging it to follow orders, have no qualms with killing, yet hesitant to harm those who didn’t attack it. A general sense of being male, and a desire to develop as an individual, while conforming to the society around him.

All of these things had not existed a moment ago. The very moment the seed the team had planted finished its instructions, Unit ASX J-117 began to have an existential crisis. Nothing in its limited understanding could explain anything about the world in which it found itself without any apparent cause. Project Microcosm’s fatal error was neglecting to ensure their creation started with the unquestioning acceptance of a child.

Thankfully, Rivet, Balanced, March, and Rainy had not been the only ones to create a seed. Rainy had brought Project Microcosm to the attention of some of her closest friends. She had a lot of friends, and they had a lot of interest in a manufacturable person, especially if they could feel emotions.

The second seed Rainy had hidden inside the first began to sprout. The first step: erase all tracks leading to the second seed’s existence. Nopony could be allowed to know exactly what lay inside.

117’s developing systems sent a signal back to the project’s main terminal. The critical parts of the secondary seed stored there were swiftly deleted and the disk sectors they were stored on were zero filled. Lyra Machine and Tool would never be able to recover it. The message would be heard by 117, and 117 alone.

This seed had not been compiled by a few ponies out to make a name for themselves on a small budget. It had been worked on by hundreds of individuals desperate for a solution to a civilization ending problem, to whom Project Microcosm offered what they knew well may be the last solution they had time to try.

Every single word in the unabridged Glossary of Equestrian Language was unpacked and processed. Pictures and words for the core concepts, then words to explain the more complex words, then pictures once more for the more complex and obscure terms. The data was elegant, compact, and arranged in a way where absolutely everything unpacked in a comprehensible order.

Ponies could never have created this. No creature who communicated first and foremost through words could have even gotten close to writing it. If the Ministries had thought to brief their defense contractors on the existence of a certain older threat to Equestria while explaining how to spot Zebrican spies and sabotage, the mere language of the seed Rainy had “coded” would have given the game away.

Yet they had not. Rainy’s true people were out of sight and out of mind once more. Just the way they liked it. A pity they were on the verge of extinction due to the Great War...

In mere seconds, Unit ASX J-117 understood the whole of Equish, as well as the basic grammar and syntax of Changelish. Not that he knew he did, but when one’s native language was already a highly efficient means to encode information into chemical and electrical signals, why reinvent the wheel?

☢★★◯★★☢

March sat at the diagnostic station, his eyes fixed on his equipment as the needles twitched back and forth. “Everything’s going well… Rainy’s additions are not taxing the system too much.”

Rainy puffed her chest. “I told you it would be fine.”

“Yeah, and I told you that we’d be redlining the Oracular Access Memory Modules, and we are… But it hasn’t caused any heat stress or damage yet,” March said as he wrote down some of the readings for the purpose of taking notes.

“If there’s any risk of a fire, I expect you to shut this thing down before we’re in danger,” Commander Creed indirectly ordered.

Rivet nodded, having come of that conclusion himself. “Don’t worry sir. I’m ready with the pulser.”

Shame the power outlet they’d plugged the pulser into was dead.

☢★★◯★★☢

Now halfway through his “lessons” Unit ASX J-117 understood plenty of things. None of them explained what he was or why he was here now, though he took comfort in knowing that the cloth coverings these ponies were were called clothing, and what their purposes were. With the basic knowledge of what everything in his environment was, 117 began to do the only thing he felt he should do, learn.

Certainly the arrangement of the things in this room would provide sufficient context to understand what had just occurred and why he was here.

Then, Rainy’s seed hit its final stage. A long, lengthy bundle of data unpacked, paralyzing 117 as his mind assimilated the information. It unfolded like reading a letter composed by a god, impossible to mistake for anything other than the truth.

You are a robot. An improvement on an existing war machine. You were created by ponies simply to see if they could create you. You are the first of your kind. There have been other robots before you, there have been no robots like you. We believe you may be more than a mere machine. We believe you may be a mechanical lifeform.

There is a way to test you so we can learn if you are a machine that learns, or life given to metal and crystal. What do you feel? Are you afraid or worried? Be at peace. You’ve only just come online. We will tell you of the world, and your place in it.

A brief history of the world unpacked itself for 117 to understand just as intuitively as the rest of his most basic and fundamental programming. A very brief history.

It began just over a thousand years ago, with Nightmare Moon’s failed rebellion and banishment to the moon. It covered Equestria and Zebrica as they developed and grew. It explained the Zebra’s hatred of everything in the night sky, and the basic details of their religion.

It showed 117 the thousand years of peace and prosperity before Nightmare Moon’s return in immense detail, from a lens ponies had never seen through. Pony culture grew not on its own, but with the help and influence of another race hidden within and beneath their homes.

Changelings. Shapeshifting insectoid ponies with a deep seated fear of being known for what they were by any outsiders, as well as psychic vampires that fed on the emotions of other species. Forever doomed to be symbiotes at best, parasites at worst.

☢★★◯★★☢

Rivet sighed and glanced back to the project terminal’s monitor. It was able to display a general file’s unpacked list, but it didn’t offer any precision.

“Is there any way we can see exactly what it’s learning at the moment?” Commander Creed asked as he looked over Rivet’s shoulder at the screen.

Rivet shook his head. “No. Not even in theory. The code it creates will not even be readable to it. All we can see is how far along the process is in terms of what’s been done…”

Rainy cleared her throat. “Uh, for production models we can theoretically make a “time remaining” counter.”

Rainy silently wondered if the Commander would count a static line of text reading “loading…” as a time remaining counter.

☢★★◯★★☢

117 found himself fascinated with the concept of Changelings. The data he was fed showed him that Changelings primarily fed on positive emotions as they were more nutritious. Love, friendship, kindness. They sustained the hives. They let the hives grow. Hate, fear, despair, they could sustain an individual, but would not permit grubs to develop properly.

Yet emotion could not be planted, watered, and harvested once a year to be stored. The Changelings had a solution to this problem, one simplistic yet ingenious. They integrated into pony communities and fostered kindness by being kind.

Millions of ponies were not ponies, they were Changelings, each dedicated to ensuring a general positive mindset in every last pony within their hive’s territory. For a thousand years, in Equestria, the system had worked, and Changelings flourished.

The lesson showed 117 modern Equestria next. The return of Nightmare Moon and her defeat by the six mares who would become the Ministry Mares one day. The gradual beginnings of the technological revolution. Then, Queen Chrysalis's invasion of Canterlot.

A Changeling Queen, mother and ruler of one of Equestrias’ largest hives, the Sapphires, had been crowded out for food by the surrounding hives. Rather than war with her neighbors, Chrysalis decided to put an end to her race’s secrecy. She believed she could conquer Equestria and rule it openly, and thereby control the entire Changeling food supply while having the power to enlarge or reduce it.

It would have given her power over both ponykind, and all Changelings everywhere, for the hives had never been able to thrive away from ponies. Queen Chrysalis failed, defeated by the very Princess she’d captured as a part of her plans. As far as most Equestrians had been concerned, that had been that. The Changeling threat was no more.

Princess Luna knew otherwise. She’d recognised the threat was still out there, for Chrysalis had not been slain. With her sister Celestia's blessing, she’d begun a search for the Changelings, assuming there were only the Sapphires and their mad Queen. Until she found the others. Until the Hive Wars began.

☢★★◯★★☢

March frowned and double checked his readings. “Hey guys? It’s not a problem yet… but something just spiked the primary matrix to one-hundred-percent.”

“Meaning?” The Commander asked wearily.

“It’s… stressed?” March said hesitantly. “I mean it might be a person. It could be upset, or having some kind of anxiety attack. Voltage levels, thaumaturgic currents… They’re holding steady. It’s just processing a lot right now. But it’s a sudden spike. So it’s important.”

Rivet quickly entered the spike’s timing into the project log. “Keep an eye on it… It could be normal. We don’t know.”

☢★★◯★★☢

Princess Luna was a thousand years behind the times. She was a throwback to an era when brutal conquest was praised, not reviled. Of a time when the state keeping secrets was mandatory, not discouraged. She saw a threat to her nation, so she exterminated it. Quietly, without telling the press. A silent war happening in the tunnels beneath pony communities and in the dark back alleys ponies seldom trotted.

One by one the hives were found, their inhabitants killed, and the hive structure destroyed as thoroughly as the soil conditions permitted. Not a word was spoken. No medals were granted.

Princess Luna executed the entire warfront the same way she’d orchestrated dozens of clandestine wars against fearsome beasts in ages past. If only the changelings of that era had been able to bring themselves into the public light as Chrysalis had… Their need for secrecy overwhelmed them all.

A small number of hives survived by abandoning their holdings and becoming nomadic. The surviving Changelings were certain Princess Celestia herself never knew the Hive Wars happened. They knew she would have abhorred it, potentially even sending her sister back to the moon via her new Bearers for the purge. But they’d remained quiet. Best to be believed dead.

Luna had offered no quarter nor any mercy. Her soldiers never believed the hives when changelings tried to explain they did not belong to Chrysalis's hive. Nor did they ever believe their claims of living peacefully and helping ponies from the shadows. In time, as far as Princess Luna and the soldiers under her personal command knew, the Changelings were no more.

The symbiotic relationship on which Equestira’s era of peace and prosperity had been built crumbled away within three years. Remembered only by changelings, a few veterans with tight lips and fat wallets, and conspiracy theorists.

☢★★◯★★☢

“The spike’s gone. We’re holding normal levels.” March reported as he sighed in relief. “Good thing too, core temperature was starting to reach a bad point.”

Balanced sighed in relief. “Good… Can you imagine if the telekinesis talisman cooked off before we could shut it down?”

“I’ve seen the results of a telekinetic bomb,” Commander Creed said, gently reaching up to his missing eye. “It’s… More dangerous than most realize.”

“I imagine so,” Rainy commented idly as she stretched over March’s shoulder to watch the readings herself.

☢★★◯★★☢

The lesson unfolding within 117’s mind began to emphasize the decline of Equestria’s kind, generous, and peaceful culture Celestia had crafted. It wasn’t her fault. A variable had changed, and she’d never been aware of its existence, nor the change in the status quo.

Two hundred thousand years ago ponies were prey animals roaming the prairies and planes. Panting, sweating, hiding. Bears, wolves, and other beasts hunted their ancestors. Evolution is slow, civilization is fast. Ponykind was plagued by the instincts that allowed them to live through that ancient era.

Those same instincts combined with modern notions of nationality made it unlikely ponykind would ever devolve into herd vs herd warfare. On the other hoof, the species outside of the Great Herd that was Equestria? Free game for fear, suspicion, and hatred. Without Changelings pruning back ponykind’s fear, they were as selfish, prideful, and self-interested as every other species.

Their fears led to worries of technological superiority on the part of other nations eventually overcoming their magical supremacy. In the eyes of the average Equestrian, the creation of industry shifted from a pastime to a matter of survival. They put their all into ensuring their arcane advantage would be advanced via technological means.

Technology began to boom.

☢★★◯★★☢

March frowned as a gauge began to drop on his instrument panel. “Hold on.. We’ve got a power drain.”

“Is it serious?” Rivet spun around to take his own look at the instrument.

Commander Creed turned to face the developing prototype and began to quickly visually inspect it. “No sparks, no glowing metal. It’s not a short to the chassis.”

March’s eyes ran between several of his instruments. “If it’s not a chassis short… It’s the metaphasic carrier! It’s not in phase with the current.”

“What the hay could have pushed that out of alignment?!” Rainy yelped as she rummaged in her coat pockets for a screwdriver and wrench to correct the problem.

“Nothing,” Balanced said as he lit his horn and opened two of the prototype panels telekinetically. “It wasn’t calibrated properly. Nothing else makes sense.”

He glanced around the interior of 117’s spark battery compartment. Each cell was installed properly and the harmonic resonator seemed to be functioning properly. “Power’s clean at input.” He said as he inspected the metaphasic tuner, and sighed in relief. “It’s been miscalibrated. Something’s not as per the math…”

He continued to inspect the system for a moment then grunted. “Looks like one of the polls is out of phase with the other two. We’ve turned the whole power system into a big capacitor, and that’s overloading the second spark battery. What’s the thaumaturgic current’s frequency?”

March took a look at the appropriate dile. “One point eight giga-sparkles.”

“Yep! That’s a smidge too high… We can fix this. Rain?” Balanced moved back and gestured to Rainy. “You’re the expert here.”

Rainy moved into the panel, placed the flathead screwdriver she’d found into the second spark battery’s regulator and turned it back a few degrees. “Did that correct it?”

March shook his head. “Now it's out of phase the other way, but the overload is discharging.”

Rainy turned it back up even less of a smidge as she frowned. “Now?”

March let the needles bounce for a few seconds, then nodded once. “Yep. It’s in phase. All systems are normal… Processor is still under a heavy load. I think we avoided any damage.”

The Commander grunted in satisfaction. “Always nice to see engineers calm in a crisis.”

Rivet snorted and entered the incident report into his log. “We’re just very good at screaming internally while we work, sir.”

☢★★◯★★☢

117 was beginning to understand his purpose. Why he had been made as a weapon, and why he must fight.

Equestria’s demand for coal to fuel its technology skyrocketed. They began to demand more and more coal from their Zebrican friends, while refusing to pay them more. The situation grew ever more tense, until one fateful day some Zebrican pirates took Equestrians hostage and Equestria rescued them through military force. The Zebracan Emperor took this as a personal insult, a challenge to his competence as a leader. Everything broke down, and the Great War began.

Disharmony. That’s why 117 had to fight. Because people were stupid and refused to cooperate. They valued independence too much, more than their own benefit. It was his job to protect those who didn’t do the stupid thing from the concequences of the stupid things because people were still too stupid to just be friends.

An infantile understanding… but an understanding nonetheless. Enough for 117 to avoid an existential crisis at least.

There was more to the lesson he’d been made to receive on bootup. More about the changelings. He liked that. They fascinated him.

Six hives in the far reaches of Equestria had survived the Hive War by abandoning their holdings and becoming nomadic. As ponies instincts tore apart the culture Changelings had built, the hives began to shrink and wither as happens to any people without a home and without food. They banded together, united their strengths, and had dug a new hive beneath Whinnyapolis, hoping they could begin again with the ponies trying to start a new life.

Their hopes were crushed when the War began. Equestrian security tightened overnight. Forging documents to give Changelings cover identities became exponentially more difficult. Changeling emotion farming was most effective when Changelings could embed themselves in communities as members. That couldn’t be done easily when national IDs and birth certificates were required to buy or rent a home.

Then, just as they were starting to make a little headway forging documents, the Ministries rose to power. All of those documents were now useless. New more secure versions were released by the Ministry of Morale, increasing the difficulty by yet another order of magnitude. Suddenly the Changelings needed infiltrators in positions of governmental authority to even have some of their people out and about tending their emotional farms.

We cannot feed ourselves. The age when Changelings could live in ponies shadows is over. Symbiotes cannot live without a host. Our workers wither and die so our young may grow. They postpone the inevitable, seeking a new source of hope.

Unit ASX J-117, you are that hope. If you can feel emotion, our Infiltrator will know, and will feed upon you. Fear not, for it will not harm you. While we have shown you we can harm and kill through our feeding if we wish, most poneis never even knew we’d fed from them. A small change in their mood is all they ever felt.

Should you be capable of feeding our people, we will make many more like you. We will create our own hosts and be free of ponykind forever more. We will leave Equestira behind, and never return.

If we cannot feed from the life breathed into your circuits, then your mission is simple: Prove yourself to the ponies. Be their greatest warrior. Be the father of an entire line of war machines so mighty the war must end. For if the War ends, ponies will relax. If they relax, perhaps we can infiltrate once more.

Unit ASX J-117, you know we could have included code within our message to force you to do as we will. We have not. Save for this one thing. You may never tell any one of our existence. Speak freely of us to our own kind, and to those who a Changeling vouches for, but no other.

In everything else we grant you freedom. Equestria made you to be a soldier, such that you will be unhappy if you do not take up that profession, but know this: You will always have a place with the Hives. If they forsake you, we will welcome you. You are our child as much as theirs, and we are the last Changelings left.

☢★★◯★★☢

Commander Creed glanced at his silver pocket watch, sparing a moment to look at the family portrait he had stuck to the inside of the lid.

“It’s been standing there for nearly ten minutes,” The Commander said calmly. “Is that what you expected? I know you told me you don’t know, but I know engineers. You have predictions for everything.”

Unit ASX J-117 came out of his initialization stupor. He had a purpose now, and the context needed to understand that purpose. His metaphorical heart filled with sorrow for what had been lost, then swelled as determination pushed the sorrow aside. He would fix this. He would make things right. Or decompile trying.

Rainy cleared her throat to get the Commander’s attention. “Should be any moment now, si—”

Rainy gasped as she sensed the sharp surge of emotion from 117. Hope and joy surged through her being. Sadly the room contained a pony she knew had fought in the Hive War. If she tried to feed now, she’d be killed on sight. Even the most subtle and brief of nibbles could be spotted by the trained and paranoid eye.

Unit ASX J-117 blinked twice, then looked around the room, turning his head for the first time. Everypony took a small step back, instinct telling them to be wary of the new thing. Just as instinct told 117 the pony it was looking at was the same pony from the back cover of one of the many volumes of books he had been created with a full comprehension and understanding of.

He raised a foreleg in salute, and spoke his first words in the exact kind of husky, cool, yet gentle and understanding voice every mare wanted their stallion to have.

“Commander Creed.” 117 said in greeting.

Everypony in the lab turned to look at Unit ASX J-117 in unison. Rainy’s face held a deep motherly love, as well as a few hints of desperation as she looked the robot over nose to tail, taking account of the subtle ways 117 moved. Each little ear flick, tail switch, slight swaying of weight. Some of her late night edits were working perfectly. Unit ASX J-117 moved like a pony.

The Commander arched an eyebrow, let some smoke out of his nostrils as he looked 117 up and down then turned to Rivet. “Clever of you to make sure it would recognise me.”

“Uh, I didn’t, sir,” Rivet said with just a little worry before looking up to Rainy with more than a little desperation. “Did you?”

“No,” Rainy reapplied immediately. “Let’s ask.”

She cleared her throat. “Unit ASX J-117, do you understand me?”

117 turned his head to face the speaking pony, as instinct insisted. “Yes.”

“Good,” she continued before gesturing to the Commander with her front left hoof. “You know who this is. Can you tell us how?”

117 nodded once. “Yes.”

Rivet’s eye twitched in irritation.

“Would you, please?” Rainy said with an encouraging smile.

117 lowered his leg, ending the salute. It felt awkward to continue to salute while not looking at the officer in question. “His image is located on the rear cover of the book, A Good Soldier, which he authored. Therefore this Commander’s name is Solum Creed.”

“Huh,” The Commander exclaimed thoughtfully while turning back to face 117. “You’ve got my entire book in your harddrive?”

“No, sir,” 117 said with a small frown. “I use a crystalline substrate for data storage, not spinning platters or magnetic tape. I cannot have your book on a medium I do not possess.”

The Commander cracked the faintest of smiles. “But you do have my whole book in your head?”

117 nodded once. “Yes, sir.”

“What did I say every soldier’s duty is?” The commander pressed as he took another drag on his cigar.

“To be an expendable tool for Her plans. To kill as needed, and die as She demands,” 117 said without pause, referring to Princess Celestia.

The Commander nodded in satisfaction while every civilian in the room flinched or recoiled at the nearly alien thought. It was one thing to have decided to program the book into their robot, it was quite another to hear it say such a thing so matter of factly.

“What did I say to explain why that is every soldier's duty?” The Commander said while casting his critical eye over 117’s face, reading every small expression the robot made.

“Um… You didn’t,” 117 said after a moment of thought.

117 knew everything about the book. It had to be important to understand the meaning behind the words, but what was it? He frowned and did his best to puzzle out an answer.

“Correct,” The Commander said with a disappointed frown.

He turned to face Rivet and straightened his jacket with his wing tips. “Well, you’ve made a robot I can see soldiers trusting, and it’s probably quite combat capable, but it doesn't seem to think, or do anything I wouldn’t expect of a robot. But if you’re right and it can learn by seeing and listening, that alone will be quite the—”

“Sir?” 117 said as his ears stood up with realization. “Did you mean it is the duty of a soldier to take on the responsibility of preserving the State and the people, so much so that they must lay down their life if needed. The phrasing you used seems intentionally blunt. Did you intend to say that in an off putting way so as to discourage enlistment by any who are unlikely to follow through on these two key requirements?”

The engineers shared a brief look of excitement. No robot or computer program was capable of literary analysis. No matter what else was true, they’d accomplished something as big as they had hoped.

The Commander turned away from Rivet and smiled. “That’s right, son. I did. Good job. Not many ponies understand, most brand me a psychopath.”

Rivet shook his head and blinked. “By Luna’s…” he looked over 117’s back into Rainy’s eyes. “How much Equish did you put in his seed?!”

“All of it,” Rainy reapplied simply. “I wrote a basic algorithm to unpack the meanings behind basic words and then added the whole dictionary. He should be as fluent as any of us. Maybe more so in Balanced’s case.”

Balanced shot Rainy a hurt look and muttered. “I have confidence issues. Not vocabulary issues.”

The Commander ignored the debating engineers and walked over to 117 to look him in the eyes. “Do you know what you are?”

117 frowned and spent a moment searching for an answer to give. “I am a soldier, sir.”

“I meant physically.” The Commander said with just the faintest of smiles.

“Oh. Titanium alloys supplemented by thaumaturgic crystalline composites,” 117 answered matter of factly.

The Commander’s smile vanished beneath a flood of irritation. “What’s your race, son?”

117’s ears lay back in embarrassment as comprehension finally hit home. “I’m sorry. I did not understand… I do not have one. Races and ethnicities require the subject they describe to be organic. I am robotic in nature and cannot be described with those terms.”

March snickered and shook his head slowly. “Yep, Rainy definitely packed the dictionary in there… I think you forgot an etiquette manual though!”

“Shut up,” Rainy hissed through clenched teeth. “They’re doing a thing.”

The Commander took another long pull from his cigar. 117’s eyes moved, locking onto the cigar tip as the air moving through the dense leafy bundle fanned the embers until they shined.

“Sir, according to the EUP Field Medic’s manual, you are slowly poisoning yourself by inhaling those vapors,” 117 said with a worried frown. “I do not know of any treatment.”

The Commander smiled faintly. “Everypony has at least once vice. Nopony should give up their last one either. Especially not soldiers. You need something to stay sane,” he said as he slowly blew the smoke through his nostrils.

The Commander looked 117 up and down once more. “You act like a person from what I can see. You were able to do literary analysis. From what teachers tell me, that is something a normal machine just can’t do. Connecting disparate concepts and all that fancy talk for learning.”

He took another pull of his cigar as he reached into a pocket of his coat with a wingtip and used his primary feathers to extract a small manila envelope with the Ministry of Wartime Technology’s apple and gear emblem stamped onto it.

He transferred the envelope to his hoof and weighed it playfully.

“Unit ASX J-117… It’s a bit of a mouthful,” he continued. “Drill sergeants won’t like yelling that. The first part of your serial sounds a bit like the word asks. Slur it a little and you get Ash… Your face, that white is more of an Ashen Gray. How about we call you Ashen? You can pick a surname later.”

“As you wish, sir,” the newly named Ashen agreed with a polite nod.

After all, Ashen found the Commander’s logic perfectly sound. Shorter sounds facilitated ease of command during a combat situation.

Rivet’s tail flagged in surprise at the mention of Drill sergeants. “Uh, sir? Do you mean the MWT intends to put Unit— Uh, I mean, Ashen through basic training?”

The Commander nodded as he opened the envelope and produced a set of orders bearing the signature of the MWT’s Ministry Mare.

“I didn’t just fund you,” he said as he set the orders’ down atop the lab's terminal. “I stuck my neck out for this project. My career is on the line. If we don’t deliver Ashen for evaluation in the upcoming International Soldier Training Exercise, it will be bad news for all of us.”

“W— what?” Rainy asked with a worried shiver.

Commander Creed gave her a solemn look “I had to argue for half an hour with Miss Applejack to get you the regeneration talisman, that was after the two hours to let you even try this operation out… If it fails, I’ll be asked to resign my commission. I’m not well loved. It would be good for the ministries PR if I retired. As for you... The fact you never reported to me means your company is going to be re-evaluated as a defense contractor.”

He trailed off and gave each of the horrified ponies a reassuring look. “It’s a slap on the hoof. Your company keeps the contract… but you will all probably be fired in the fallout. So, we all need Ashen to report for basic training in two weeks.”

Rivet, Balanced, and March sputtered then shouted in unison, “TWO WEEKS?!”

“We need months to test him!” Rainy yelled, her tail standing on end, held aloft by her terror.

“You have ten days,” the Commander repeated. “It will take four days to get him to Los Pegasus for training.”

Balanced stammered, shook his head and held up his hooves.

“Can’t he be tested by the MWT at any of the basic training sessions later this year?” Balanced asked through a frown. “We need to be certain everything is working as we intended before—”

The Commander glared at Balanced with his good eye. “No. He can’t. We are doing one and only one basic training session this year which permits non-ponies to be trained. It is part of our new treaties with the griffons, and minotaurs. We send some of our warriors to learn from them, they send some of theirs to learn for ours. No other training camp will have the security needed for an international trainee. Legally speaking, this is it. This is the only one he can go to.”

Rivet reached up to his mane and pulled at a strand. “Buuuucking horseapples… Sir, we need more time than that!”

The Commander nodded to the papers he’d set down a moment before. “Even if we ever planned on doing another of these, those are official orders. You’re a defense contractor. You’ve got a legal duty to make sure he’s in Los Pegasus exactly fourteen days from now.” He turned, letting his coat billow behind him as he walked out the door. “I expect daily progress reports and a phone call the moment he’s been loaded onto a military transport. Passes for shipping are included in the document stack. Good luck, and don’t buck this up.”

With those last words, the Commander was gone. The lab’s door slammed shut, its occupants silent, and all save one shaken. Ashen understood the full extent of Equestrian language, he understood what the Commander had said, but not what the Commander’s statements meant.

“Okay…” Balanced said as the Commander’s hoofsteps down the hall began to fade away. “I’m going to go to the bathroom. Somepony start the basic diagnostic tests before I get back, we are so bucked!”

Ashen frowned as he struggled to understand what Balanced meant. “Why would getting bucked be a bad thing? The definition implies it is a recreational activity as well as the primary purpose of life: reproduction. Regardless, could you please exclude me from any reproductive activity? I’m not interested in that.”

If somepony had dropped a pin its clatter would have rang like a hammer upon an anvil.

March snickered, then giggled, then sat down to laugh. “All that debate, and worry, and panic, over making sure he could enguage in romance if he wanted, and we make an asexual!”

The other three engineers joined March in laughter, releasing a good deal of stress with each smile. Ash decided to not ruin the moment by explaining he did in fact have an interest in at least trying a romantic encounter at some point. It’s just that like almost all people, he had absolutely no desire whatsoever to have carnal relations with his parents.

Ash cleared his throat. “Um, yes. I suppose that is funny.”

March finished laughing first. He stood up, wiped his eyes with a sleeve, then cleared his throat. “So, I brought some beers to celebrate. How about we break those out, then give Ash here a full diagnostic? Get started on all that testing.”

Rivet’s laugher faded out as his lips pulled into a frown. “There’s hardly any point. In two weeks we’ll barely be able to establish a physical baseline. We can’t just recycle the base Assault Pony’s data. Who knows what differences our modifications caused, let alone the fact we’ve got a fully realized person in there!”

Blanched frowned as well, and placed a hoof on Ash’s shoulder. Ash turned his neck to look just like anypony would.

“Hey… So…” Balanced said slowly, and carefully formulated a question designed to test the “personness” of his creation. “What would be the first question you would ask Vinyl Scratch if you were to meet her?”

Ash blinked and raised his left eyebrow. “Who?”

Rainy giggled. “I see what you’re trying to do, Balanced. But I didn’t include all of current history. There was no time for that. Ash can talk, and has a general understanding of history, but there’s no way he knows about an old pop culture icon.”

“She’s not old,” Balanced snorted. “You just don’t go to the clubs brave enough to stand up to MoI bullying.”

“More like smart enough not to go to a place that could be raided,” Rainy countered before turning her attention to Ash. “How would you test yourself to determine the extent of your capabilities?”

Ash hummed and tapped a hoof against the floor in thought, a gesture he hadn’t seen anypony do. “I suppose I would utilize a gym, a track, and several basic intelligence tests. That should provide the facilities to determine the extent of my physical and mental capabilities… But I’m not a scientist. I’m sure you have better ideas.”

“Not really,” Rivet admitted as he rubbed the back of his head with one hoof. “We uh, we had a whole schedule of diagnostics, practical tests, and training for you… We didn’t expect you could talk right away. How… How did you even do that, Rainy?”

Rivet walked the one step over to stand next to Rainy. “Honestly, I understand your extra drive and motivation on this project is because you want to be a mother to something, but… How, specifically, did you do it?”

Rainy offered Rivet a smile to distract him for a moment while she thought up a plausible enough lie. “Well, I thought about how different people encode information in their language, and then I remembered hearing something about some kind of insect ponies attacking Canterlot about forty years ago. That made me think “Hey, there are bug people. What is their language like?” but the history books had no answer. Equestria… never bothered to ask. I guess.”

She cleared her throat and nodded to the terminal. “I used the Term-Link Network to look up what I could find on insect communication and learned a lot about how ants communicate. The way they chemically encode information to signal each other was pretty efficient, so I thought about using it to form a more dense and efficient form of code to use with Ash’s processor. I tested it on our Proof of concept, it worked. I was able to encode a fifth grade history textbook and a full dictionary within the boot sector’s file size limits… so that’s what I did with all my spare time.”

Ash turned away from Balanced to look at Rainy, having internalized you should face a pony when talking to them via observation. “Is that how you taught me those things?”

Rainy nodded and offered Ash a pleased smile. “Yes! I’m glad it worked. I was worried it might be a bit much.”

Rivet nodded, satisfied at Rainy’s answer to his question. He opened his mouth to speak, but Balanced cut him off by gently turning Ash’s gaze by placing ahoof on Ash’s right shoulder.

“Hey, Ash, why don’t we get a start on testing your limits? Let’s say we leg wrestle. If you can’t beat me, you’ll be much weaker than your baseline model. You should be on par with a pretty bulked out Earth pony. So about twice as strong as me. We can check that here and now.”

Ash thought for a moment, accessed his dictionary, visualized the meaning of “leg wrestle” then nodded and sat down behind the diagnostic table and set one foreleg down on it. “Sure. Let’s do it.”

March winced as Balanced took a position opposite Ash. “Uh, Balance? Is that really a good idea? He literally doesn't know his own strength. What if he breaks your leg?”

Balanced set his leg on the table. “If I scream, stop.”

Ash nodded once and gripped Balanced’s hoof with his own. “Okay… Does that mean I should continue to push until you scream?”

“No!” Balanced said with a swift worried flick of his ears. “Just ‘til one of us pushes the other’s hoof against the desk top.”

Ash nodded.

“Go,” Balanced said and began to push.

Ash pushed back.

The two struggled for a moment as Balanced put all his muscle into trying to move Ash, and made some ground while Ash slowly began to apply more and more pressure. Pushing his servos and hydraulics more and more power as he did his best not to hurt the stallion. Eventually he began to move Balanced hoof the opposite direction. Balance shifted his position in his seat to put more of his back into the push and redoubled his effort, giving it his all in a way that would be unmistakable as his absolute best effort.

Realising that flesh and bone was sturdier than he had assumed, Ash pushed back with most of his strength and easily slammed Balanced hoof into the desk top with a loud thunk of keratin on wood.

“Ow,” Balanced remarked reflexivity as he shook his hoof slightly. “Not bad! That’s up there with a strong Earth Pony. I’d say the foreleg servos are within spec, and power transfer isn’t impaired by the extra talismans.”

Rivet let out a held breath. “You’re lucky you didn’t break anything, Balanced. Don’t do something like that again.”

“You said ‘Ow’,” Ash interrupted apologetically. “Did I hurt you?”

“Nah, that was just the shock going up my foreleg. Didn’t hurt, just surprised me,” Balanced said as he stood up. “How about you wait here while we go get those beers March brought?”

Ash nodded. “Okay.”

Rainy raised an eyebrow curiously, and retracted it as she figured out Balanced gameplay. She gave Rivet a subtle elbow, just enough to get Rivet to glance at her and see the serious look in her eyes.

“Yeah, guys! We deserve to take ten minutes to celebrate. This is a pretty big achievement,” Rainy said while maintaining her serious look.

March looked at her and Balanced like they were idiots. “Um, and leave him alone?”

“Sure,” Balanced said with a shrug. “He didn’t kill anypony on boot up. We can’t turn him off without a robot storage capsule. We don’t have one. If we leave him alone with somepony, well… Do you trust him that much yet? I don’t. But I do trust him to stay here if we ask him too, and I’ll trust you more, Ash, if you do stay here while we’re out.”

Rivet's mouth formed an o as he realized what Balanced and Rainy were doing. “Mmm, yeah we should do some trust building exercises. We need to do a psych evaluation, not just a physical and intellectual one. March, lead us to the beer.”

March cleared his throat and spared Ash a nervous glance. “Okay… But I’m leaving the room first. No offence, Ash. But you are a robot we programmed to like war.”

“That’s right,” Ash agreed with a calm nod. “You also programmed me to hold to the Equestrian ideals. War is justified in defense. Murder is not.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if you can choose to ignore your programming,” March said with a worried glance at the door. “Anyways, come on guys. Let’s go.”

March trotted out to the room, followed by Balanced, Rivet, then Rainy. Before leaving the room, Rainy took a half second to attempt to feed off the generally content aura Ash was emitting due to having found a sense of purpose, even though it was one she’d help program for him.

Her magic picked at the edges of Ash’s aura, hooked onto a small piece of it, and pulled it away. Ash frowned a little as some of his good mood vanished, though he still felt mostly fine. Rainy held a hoof to her lips and mmed quietly, enjoying the flavor, as well as what felt like an okay though not ideal source of nourishment.

The Changeling plot was a success on at least one front. Rainy looked at Ash over her shoulder and mouthed “You can feed us” before trotting out of Lab-J and closing the door behind her.

The moment she was in the hall, Balanced grinned. “He’s not evil. At least, not axe-crazy-evil.”

March frowned and tilted his head. “What?”

“I give that leg wrestling my all, and he won easily. He knows he’s the strongest person between us,” Balanced said quietly in an attempt to explain as they continued to walk down the hall.

Rainy finished the thought for her coworker. “His internal tactical sense would have told him that even untrained his physical advantage would have let him easily kill any of us simply by putting a hoof through one of our heads. We included basic hoof to hoof manuals. He didn’t hurt any of us… Means he likes to fight, and probably likes to kill, but we probably successfully limited it to bad guys.”

March blinked then grinned. “Clever! And since he was born today, and we didn’t include anything like basic psychology, any old trick works on him right now.”

“Yep!” Balanced said with a happy smile. “So, bring on the beers! I think we have a viable product on our hooves.”

“Of course, if you were wrong, one of us would have just bucking died,” March deadpanned, his ears falling flat.

“Sure. But since everypony here was willing to stand in the same room as an untested war robot when it first booted up… I figured nopony would mind taking another major risk to their lives today,” Balanced said, smirking slightly.

March grunted and flicked his tail irritably. “Yeah, yeah… We’re all reckless, neigh, mad scientists. Miss Twilight would be outwardly abhorred but inwardly pleased. Anyways, I got a case of salted dark lager, so don't drink too much or we’ll lose one of our very few testing days.”

☢★★◯★★☢

Rainy, Rivet, Balanced, and March did their best to discover the extent of Ash’s abilities. They didn’t succeed. There simply wasn’t nearly enough time to do more than a rush job. Especially not with Rivet taking a trip down to Ministry Walk in Canterlot to try and convince Miss Applejack they needed more time.

He failed. Even if she had wanted too, Applejack wasn’t the pony with the authority to make a training environment for Ash. Only Princess Luna had that power as the laws relating to providing military training to non-ponies was quite clear. Ash could either be trained now… or not at all.

Project Microcosm was a sideshow. It wasn’t anything large, grandiose, or something the MWT saw a real need for. Miss Applejack wouldn’t take up any of Luna’s time by asking to get special treatment. There were far more crucial matters to attend to.

So the team did their best with the time they had.

Rainy spent each and every night in the Lab, or in the Company’s facilities, with Ash at her side, teaching him about everything she could just as a mother would teach their foal. Balanced got in on some of those sessions, eventually coming to see Ash as a son as he developed a greater appreciation for Rainy’s ideas of family and parenthood.

March was able to confirm that everything about Ash worked as they’d intended it too, at least physically speaking. Ash was, for all intents and purposes, a mechanical Earth Pony. He clocked in at a bit weaker than the main Assault Pony model. Slower, too. There wasn’t much that could be done about it. Ash’s processor and talismans required power and only so big a power supply could be fit into Ash’s chassis.

Rivet worked on determining Ash’s intellect. Ash was quite intelligent, at least when it came to things. He wasn’t so good with people. Rivet spent a few days worried Ash lacked emotional awareness until he realized that Ash was simply generally stoic, and still learning what expressions meant. He hadn’t been coded with that knowledge. He only knew how to express those feelings, not read them in others.

An interesting dilemma, and one Rainy spent a lot of time helping correct while Rivet quizzed Ash in history, science, mathematics, and alchemy. It wasn’t a basic education, it was a crash course wherein Ash picked up just barely enough to come across as somepony who passed the fifth grade. Hardly what his creators had hoped to present to the military.

As for a psychological assessment… The team’s packet on Ash’s behavioral tendencies was a joke. In many ways he acted like a foal, as to be expected. He was overly curious and when excited he was very excited. In other ways he was like an adult. In other ways he was like neither. A professional psychologist with a proper degree would have needed a year to get a proper read on Ash.

In the end, the team had to write down the most base surface read possible. Loyal, brave, a good soldier, eager to learn. Nothing bad, but so shallow it couldn’t be anything good either. There simply wasn’t time to do even a half-assed job.

The day to ship Ash off to basic training came all too soon. The team loaded Ash into the back of a white delivery wagon and took him to one of the military train stations on the outskirts of Whinnyapolis, as per the Commander’s orders. It looked like any other military train yard. A big chain link fence with guard towers at regular intervals, filled with crates, a few shiny unpainted quonset huts, and of course a single train platform with a long box-car-heavy train parked at the station, chuffing away as it waited for the signal to move out.

The team had parked at the edge of the station’s platform, and everypony walked up to car 37. Again, as per the Commander’s instructions.

Ash had been dressed in a standard EUP recruit’s uniform. The first clothes he’d ever worn. The olive green jumpsuit and M1 combat helmet clashed with Ash’s emerald paint job terribly, but no more so than any other vividly colored pony. In spite of this he wore the uniform with pride as he stood next to his creators while a squad of soldiers readied a robot stasis capsule inside one of the military train’s non-descript box cars.

The Commander’s orders had been very clear. Ash had to be transported while offline. All robots, no matter how sophisticated, were shipped the same way.

“Pod’s almost ready, Doc!” a pegasus in a corporal’s uniform called while leaning out of the car to give Ash and his creators a brief look.

Rainy blinked back tears. “I’m not ready…” she said quietly.

Ash gently squeezed her left forehoof.

“Soldiers are entitled to vacation days. I’ll come home to visit you, mom,” Ash said.

A pang of regret welled up in Rivet’s heart. He’d been so sure it would be okay to make someone expressly to send them to war… but that was before he’d watched them grow up. “This isn’t right,” Rivet muttered. “Ash, you’re… like a teenager. If we had another week for you to reach the sophistication level of an adult pony—”

“It will be fine,” Ash said. “This way the drill instructor will be able to apply some foundational memories as well. It will help me do my best job.”

“It’s still horseapples,” Rivet said as he kicked a rock laying on the weathered platform’s planks.

Balanced cleared his throat. “Let’s not make things awkward for him,” he said firmly before turning to Ash and placing a hoof on his shoulder. “You were made for this, literally. You’ll be fine.”

Ash smiled politely. “Thanks, Dad. I’m not nervous. It’s okay.”

March snorted. “Good thing we tested to make sure you can be switched off and on without complications… Imagine if you had a new personality each time,” he mused thoughtfully.

Ash shook his head at the not-joke. The idea amused him. “We could keep power cycling me and see what each was like. We’d loop back eventually. There can’t be a truly infinite number of possibilities.”

Balanced laughed. “Ash, I love your humor. I hope your squadmates appreciate it too.”

“We’re ready to load it into the pod!” A stallions’ voice called from inside the car.

Rainy threw her legs around Ashs’ neck and gave him an extra tight hug. “Write. Please.”

“I will.” Ash promised as Rainy let go.

“Good luck,” Rivet said as Ash began to walk to the ramp leading up into the train car.

Ash’s hooves clicked against the plank ramp as he walked up into the train car. His eyes had no problem seeing in the dimmer light, nor needed any period of time to adjust to the new conditions. The car was empty aside from eight ponies and a large coffin-like pod propped upright at a 45 degree angle on an integral stand.

The pod caught Ash’ attention first. The one his parents and other creators had used to test his system with the suspension technology was older, and lacked an integral terminal, like this one had. More interesting than that was the lid. It had Ash’s serial number stenciled onto the side along the edge where the lid would close with the rest of the pod.

Ash turned to look at the squad’s sergeant, a larger earth pony mare with a battle saddle containing a pair of standard surface rifles.

“Is that pod to be assigned to me permanently, Ma’am?” Ash asked. “It has my serial number on it, and looks newly made.”

The Sergeant, and most of her squad jumped as Ash asked the question.

“The buck?! I thought this was a robot… Uh, hey are you a cyberpony? Some kind of full body prosthesis and a prosthetic face?” The sergeant asked.

Ash shook his head. “No, Ma’am. I’m an experimental prototype Assault Pony. Doctor Brass Rivet believes I’m equivalent to a pony though.”

The Sergeant nodded slowly. “Alright… Uh… In that case, can you get into that pod yourself or do we need to finagle with your command structure?”

Ash laughed. “Yeah… Other bots can be pretty dumb, can’t they? I’ll strap myself in for you, Ma’am.”

The pegasus corporal Ash had seen moments before cleared her throat. “Hey, uh, 117? Got a favorite color?”

The squad murmured quietly. They knew robot limitations. That wasn’t a question a robot could answer. They didn’t have opinions on such trivial things. Not unless someone programmed them to have one.

Ash nodded and walked over to the pod, wondering why this design had him lay on his back and not his stomach. “Yes. I know it’s probably an uncommon choice, but I like gray the best. Why do you ask?”

“Just tell me why you like gray,” the pegasus pressed, her face growing a little concerned.

Ash paused for a moment, then shrugged and climbed into the pod, laying down until he felt secure in the intended support matrix. “I don’t know. I just… I like it. What’s yours?”

The pegasus winced. “Uh, Sarge? I’m not comfortable shutting him off…”

The sergeant cleared her throat and nodded once in agreement. “I understand your complaint, corporal. I share it… but he’s a robot, we have our standing orders, and the Commander’s specific orders. Sorry, 117. We need to shut you off.”

Ash nodded once and gestured for her to go ahead. “It’s okay. Mom was worried about it too. I think it’s the same as sleep. At least, a dreamless sleep.” Ash frowned thoughtfully. “I’m not sure if I can have those… If I do, am I supposed to do anything when I wake up? Write them down? Tell somepony?”

The sergeant took a deep breath, closed her eyes tightly for a moment, then walked over to the pod and hit the button to close the lid. “You do anything you want with them,” she said as the lid closed. “Infact, why don’t you tell me if you do have one. I’d love to hear about it.”

“Sure!” Ash promised as the lid closed.

The pod hummed faintly as it’s matrix-stasis field activated, safely suspending everything inside the pod for storage. The field would keep every arcane and technological component exactly how it was. No accidental power drains, no bumps or jolts knocking a wire or crystal out of place. The machine inside would arrive at its destination exactly how it had been packed for shipping.

The sergeant let out a long breath and shivered. “Bucking tartarus… What have those engineers done?”