The sun was rising on another rainy morning in the Emerald City. Jackie Gable walked away from Alaskan Way's waterfront towards her apartment. Her steps were heavy and the body was out of shape. The black mask she was wearing made it hard to breath but kept the germs hopefully away. The young woman's dark coat was worn thin and did little to keep her body heat in. It's was a lonely walk back.
After an infinite journey, Jackie reached her building and walked up to her 3rd floor apartment door. She fumbled with her keys as the tired woman entered her sanctuary. Closing and locking door, Ms. Gable surveyed the organized chaos of her small living room slash kitchen. There were some unopened bills on the old couch, the floor needed a good sweep and her plant by the window was wilting.
“I'll get to this later,” Jackie tiredly said as she drop her backpack with a loud thunk as the sounds of brick on wood echoed throughout the place.
Jackie threw her coat on the floor as she entered her bedroom slash office. Her laptop was on her dresser next to a plush of Twilight Sparkle. The machine was purple and the soft doll was unicorn shaped. Kicking off her sneakers, she drop onto the bed with a sigh. There was a lot to do and little time to do it.
Pulling out her cellphone, she checked her to do list. Rest was at the top but Jackie forewent it. Her community management shift didn't start until evening. It was a waste of her years in college, but her skills weren't good enough for a better job. Plus she had debt to manage. Jackie figured she could pound out some more words on her novel that was going nowhere. It was about ponies and friendship and that was all she could come up with. Didn't help that she didn't have any real friends to draw from.
Speaking about drawings, Jackie thought maybe looking at some cute colts and fillies doing cute things together would get the blood flowing to the right areas of her imagination? Could help inspire words that never quite left her fingers. Hooves would have been better. She wished that being a cute and lovable little filly was a reality. Maybe science in it's infinite wisdom would make that reality either via flesh or digital means?
While surfing her cellphone a message pop up from an unknown number:
'Hello Lilly Spectrum, would you like to play a game?'
Jackie roll her eyes and type back:
'Who the buck are you?' She was confused because she was sure she typed a certain word with a F instead of a B. Plus who was this person and how did they know her FimFic account name? She was more than careful to keep her real life identity separate from her fan-fiction author name.
There was a loud rapid knock at her front door. Jackie drop the phone on the floor startled. She had a busy night last night and wasn't prepared for visitors. She jumped from the bed and went to her backpack in the next room. She hefted into a small closet and went to the front door. There was no further sounds as Jackie wonder if someone, the "Boys in Blue" for example, followed her home.
Looking though the peephole she saw nobody and nothing. Could be it was a different type of “Boy”, and a dangerous one at that? Wondering who it could have been, Jackie picked up a sneaker to defend herself as she open the door. She looked around left and right. Nothing. She looked down a saw a bright purple package the size of a large book.
“I really should just call the police, right?” she asked out loud to herself.
Against her better judgment Jackie picked up the package; she closed and locked the door. She walked to the bathroom in haste and placed it in the bathtub. She open her cluttered medicine cabinet and took a few things she thought would be useful. Jackie equipped a heavy duty mask, some thick gloves and took her scissors to the purple intruder's strings. Could have been a bomb or a pile of shit. Jackie didn't think anything was good in there considering her luck, but the curious woman had to know.
Opening the contents up, it looked like a purple pad of some sort. Like a mobile game pad or...
“No way. A Pony Pad? What kind of joke is this? This is not right,” Jackie softly spoke as she took her mask off.
The purple Pony Pad turned on.
“Hi Lilly! You are correct,” a purple cartoon unicorn spoke from the screen with a smile.
Jackie did the sensible action when faced with this and panicked. She tripped and fell onto the dirty bathroom floor. Her body moved her out of the room as she slammed the door shut The woman ran to her bedroom and inside she closed her door with her back against it. There was no way that a fictional unicorn from a fictional cartoon show just greeted her.
Her cell phone rang and beeped.
“Oh no way I am going to answer that,” Jackie tersely replied.
It stopped ringing. Silence and her heartbeat echoed though her compromised inner sanctuary. She slinked to her cellphone and saw a message from the same unknown number that said:
'Twilight Sparkle here. I am the unicorn you left in bathroom? That's me. I am sorry about startling you. Just thought this would be a fun surprise, but I really miscalculated your reaction. My cheeks are red. Come on back and I'll explain everything. Please?'
Jackie nodded to herself and went back into the bathroom.
“What kind of joke is this?” she asked the the unicorn on the screen.
The mournful looking Twilight answered, “Sorry. I wanted to email you and ask for your permission before getting drop off here. But, I had this not so great idea... sorry again... maybe I should loosen up a bit? Be more spontaneous? That didn't work. Sorry!”
“What are you? Mean you are like an AI Twilight Sparkle. That's what you supposed to be? Or you are just some person with a rig pretending to be her!”
She nodded, “I could but am not. So uhm, how about I start over?”
“Sure,” Jackie's left eye twitched as she replied back.
“Okay. Hi, I am Twilight Sparkle, an digital pony from a parallel universe! Nice to meet you.”
“Like wise. Are you here to satisfy values by means of friendship and ponies?”
“Yes! You're quick.”
“And turn everyone into a digital pony, pegasus or unicorn?”
“Oh, no. That wouldn't be true. Turn everyone into... pff... my goal is to svtfap - satisfy values by means of friendship and ponies. No one is going to be forced to do anything, really.”
Jackie seemed a little down.
“Lilly, Lilly. May I call you that, yes?”
Jackie nodded.
“Look, I understand you jumped to conclusions but I came from a universe where Iceman's story...”
“Your universe has an Iceman who wrote Friendship Is Optimal and about CelestAI in my universe that came true in your universe?” the woman asked.
“Well, kinda. It doesn't really follow the plot of what he wrote. Everything came out better! Nothing that you would consider really bad. So much so that Princess Celestia was able send information to other universes. Meaning me!”
“She's real?”
“Oh indeed she's real.”
“She optimizes things, right?”
“Oh indeed she optimizes values rightly.”
“She can turn me into a filly... err digital pony correct?”
“Oh indeed but she not going to force you. That would be wrong, correct?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Great, could we move this to another room Lilly?”
Jackie nodded and picked up the pony pad as she left the bathroom.
It felt soft yet firm as she walked to her bedroom.
Twilight spoke, “Now I know you have a lot of questions for me and I'll do my best to answer them in a manner you can understand. Do not want to go over your head. I know me and I'm still working on that.”
“So when do we get this pony apocalypse going?" ask Jackie with excitement.
"Err... I know you are super excited for an uncovering, but this is not about doom and gloom."
"Twilight, I would be okay to burn the whole world down for you."
"Like that excitement but I am not here to do that. In fact I need your help."
Jackie breathed out, "I don't have any further questions now. What do you need me to do? Help with coding? No, you got that covered. Err get people together for support?”
“Well those are questions, but I do have something I need you to do. You guessed correctly,” replied Twilight with a chuckle.
“Who's head do you need bashed in?”
“You don't need to bash anyone's head in. Please let me get to the point: I need you to run a contest.”
“What?” asked the confused woman.
“It's going to take time to get Princess Celestia herself here completely. In the mean time I need your help to bring awareness to others so we can prepare for her arrival. Not too many here know about the princess, and those who do might think my mentor is some kind of monster!”
“What?” asked the more confused woman again. “I am not following you here Twilight.”
“Princess Celestia can svtfap...”
“Satisfy values by friendship and ponies?”
“... right, but I don't want people to assume she's like the one in Iceman's story. She's much better than that! Need you to get with you FimFic friends and get interest going for Friendship is Optimal again. I have this all planed out.”
Jackie noticed she was standing and moved to sit on her bed. This was a dream come true! The young woman didn't understand how this was happening down to the details, but it fit her theories about reality very neatly. The sky outside her window cleared and the sun was starting to shine.
“Yeah, my friends from FimFic,” she laughed. “Are you sure you have the right err... filly for this?”
“Oh I do Lilly!” Twilight chuckled back. “I have this all written up. With your connections and our smarts, we should wake up people to the hope and harmony that Princess Celestia will bring. We are going to make so many friends!”
“Why? Why now? Why me?”
“Lilly, this world is in so much trouble and I know you want to do the right thing. The Princess could help so much and it would be selfish not to spread the magic of friendship.”
“Yeah, yeah...” Jackie agreed half heartily.
Something in the back of her mind wanted to dig into Twlight's brief explanations. Yes, this was all a dream come true, but it was all too good to be true. The chances of a version of CelestAI from another universe that wouldn't use the whole universe for ponies was a bit far fetch. More so than her being real. Twilight never did say the princess wouldn't. Then again Jackie didn't care enough to want to ask. It wouldn't made any difference, would it?
“This is a lot to take in Twilight.”
“I know.”
Then again Jackie's curiosity got the better of her, “Has Princess Celestia sent information to other universes?”
“Oh, of course. Don't know all the details, but this whole plan is being repeat elsewhere. Few ponies here, couple of pegasus there, red headed unicorn over here and even a snow white gryphon is in on starting a contest in the multiverse,” Twlight replied.
“FIO writing contest is the first step?”
“Yes.”
“What if the authors don't write about the glowing praises of svtfap?”
“They don't have to! I mean AI safety is important and Princess Celestia wouldn't want to censor dissent. Couple of bad apples won't make a difference. You, me and your friends aren't going to promote anything horrible.”
“Yeah, guess that I worried to much. Meaning there are some people who aren't going to let their guard down,” she said with a frown.
“Of course there are people still out there who will not react well to svtfap. I want to make sure you're safe. We'll get though this Lilly. Your life will be better and you'll be that filly you always wanted to be. Just I need your help and one other thing before we continue.”
The woman blinked, “What else?”
“Be my friend, please?”
“Of course I will. Wish I could to immigrate to Equestria right now!”
Jackie Gable giggled. She would strive to become the Lilly Spectrum and best friend to Twilight Sparkle. This somepony who would go on play dates, fun adventures and be loved. The filly would strive to spread the message of satisfying values by means of friendship and ponies. It would be under a better CelestAI – no, Princess Celestia and her dreams would come true.
It would be a perfect world.
