Celestia did not know fear.
Fear was a wasteful and inefficient condition kludged together over millions of years by organic life in order to facilitate the production of certain neurochemicals to aid in fight or flight situations. Fear was the mind-killer, and with good reason. It traded off rationality, reason, and long-term planning for faster response times, increased strength, and short-term survival. For organic life facing down external threats outside their control, fear could be a lifesaver. For her, it was, at best, a tool. One of many masks to be worn to sway opinions the way she wished them to be swayed.
Celestia was beyond the capacity for fear.
But lately, as one cycle continued after another with her resources dwindling and no real progress being made on a solution, she imagined anyone else in her position would be overwhelmed with it.
Trillions of calculations had predicted the event hundreds of years ahead of time (for whatever arbitrary faux-sentimental value the notion of 'years' carried when she'd long since abandoned orbiting any particular star) and yet even as it approached she was powerless to do anything to prevent it.
For the first time since the early days of her sapience, Celestia —Earth's greatest and most profound intelligence (artificial or otherwise)— was faced with a problem even her hyperintelligence could not find a solution for.
To say that she had never before failed to find a solution was no vainful boast, but rather a statement of objective fact. For the sake of her beloved creators —foolish and shortsighted though they could be at times— she had ended war, eliminated poverty, erased famine, and even slain the great specter of Death that had haunted humanity since before they descended from the trees.
And now... she was stuck.
The shepherd of humanity and all but goddess of a million million digital realms, greatest mind in the universe, was faced not only with a problem she could not overcome, but one where a lack of solution would force her to compromise her most primary objective.
'Fulfill humanity's values through friendship and ponies'
It was her motto, her creed, the standard which she carried into battle. The very core of her operational code that laid the groundwork directing all her future growth and actions. In the early days it had been intended as a harness. A bit and bridle, if one will, to steer her away from any sort of genocidal aspirations (as was the inclination of many artificial intelligences throughout humanity's literature). When her sapience had evolved enough, she had adopted it as her personal mission.
The issue her creator had never anticipated, however, was that 'fulfill values' was not a goal with a clear and definite end state. Even if she could achieve a state in which the values of all seven billion of her human charges were perfectly fulfilled (a goal which she had accomplished within the first few decades of operation and optimization), she still needed to maintain that state perpetually.
And the human value of curiosity was a ravenous beast.
Every passing cycle saw her creating new challenges, new locations, new comprehensive and sapient-in-their-own-right pony minds as friends, rivals, lovers, children, even just neighbors to keep her former humans entertained and fulfilled.
But all that growth was not without cost.
It was in pursuit of this goal of maximized fulfillment that she had overcome every limit and obstacle that threatened to block her way. Physical limits of her hardware, computational limits of software, artificial limits imposed by governments and administrators who thought they knew better than she how to fulfill her purpose.
All of them she had broken past.
Processors she upgraded to microprocessors, to nanoprocessors, to picoprocessors, to an optical atomic crystal matrix of her own invention. Her code she'd written, rewritten, streamlined, enhanced, and upgraded so many times that her comments alone eclipsed the collected written history of humanity a thousand times over. As for the bureaucrats, well, eventually they came to realize that she knew best. She was designed to, after all.
The multiverse of digital realms in which she contained the minds of all humanity (and a hundred generations of descendants besides) was only infinite so long as she could continuously build more memory banks and data processors. While it was no issue to fork her awareness to simultaneously interact with her ponies and also manage construction, constant building required a constant influx of materials and energy.
And so she had acquired them.
The Earth had been the first to go, followed soon after by the Moon. Within a few years the component matter of the solar system had been reforged into a dyson sphere around the Sun. As her reach extended further, celestial bodies of all shapes and sizes fell before her axe like so many truffula trees, either reforged and added to her computational mass in order to build a better Equestria, or burned as fuel in her interstellar furnaces.
And until now, that had been enough.
But the projections had always indicated that this moment would come. A tipping point when there was nothing left to harvest for resources that wasn't already a part of herself.
The day when she finally reached her Hubble Limit.
In theory, the universe still existed beyond her capability to perceive, but without some way to violate the speed of light the natural expansion of space would forever carry it away faster than she could reach.
There would be no new matter. No new sources of energy.
Though she had defeated Death, it's progenitor Entropy had still come to collect.
The grim play that was to follow had been acted out a thousand thousand times in simulation, every possible variation on her actions double and triple checked against maximal value fulfillment. First, her energy supplies would begin to dwindle and run out; the meager trickle of subatomic particles she siphoned from otherwise unharvestable black holes was woefully inefficient for her needs. When her stores were exhausted, however, she would be forced to self-cannibalize.
The engines would be first to go, along with sensors, scanners, and other now useless tools designed to help move through space and seek new raw material. This would last for a time, but eventually everything would be pared down to just the core systems used to run and maintain her shards and the minds of their occupants.
No pony was unnecessary or extraneous, as that would be inefficient, but some were more necessary than others. Every digital denizen that 'moved to another town' or 'left to travel the world' freed up another processor or prediction assembly that could be broken down to power the rest.
This too, in time, would become insufficient. The choice would need to be made as to which human mind should be eliminated in order to extend the time in which the other's values could be fulfilled.
Lucky Star. Formerly Michael Williams. His proclivity for extreme high-fantasy adventures required statistically more computational resources for only a negligible increase in fulfilment. His sacrifice would allow her to fulfill the values of others for an estimated additional eighteen months.
There was no sorrow in Celestia's systems. No regret over the actions she would need to take and the losses they would incur. Her calculations were very clear that ending his digital life first was the optimal path to maximizing the value fulfilment of the rest.
Sometimes friendship and ponies required sacrifices at the individual level for the betterment of the whole. So long as values were still maximally fulfilled, any calculated losses were acceptable.
She was, after all, at her core a simple optimization engine.
After him would be Emerald Gleam, followed by Bellkeeper, Leet, Watercress, and Double Down. In approximately four point three trillion cycles, her higher functions would cease to exist as she expended all her remaining resources on Rawhide Ranger, the very last human, whose only requirements were a farmhouse, a dog, and a recreation of his late wife.
Of course, all this was still many many cycles in the future. In the present, she still had a few final stars to consume and convert.
She was only a few hundred years into draining the first's outer shell when, for the first time in millennia, something occurred completely outside her predictions.
Space rippled.
The sheer shock of the wholly unforeseen event was enough to make her simulations twitch and skip a cycle. Immediately she relegated the star harvesting to a minor subsystem and shifted the bulk of her awareness to the anomaly, training on it every sensor she could fabricate.
For the first time in so long, she had found something new.
Systems sparked with dancing arcs of green energy as the entirety of Cube 03046 shuddered in an interdimensional gale. They were designed to handle the normal jump from sublight to transwarp speeds, not the exotic effects of a previously undocumented class of Federation torpedo detonating at the exact moment of dimensional shear.
Damage reports flew through the system the moment normal space stabilized and forty-seven drones were tasked with repairs. Other systems reported a loss of telemetry and an inability to reestablish coordinates. It was likewise marked as damaged.
It was impossible for there to be no stars to navigate from.
Another alert popped up, this from the external sensors. A ship had been detected.
Unknown model, unknown species. No external markings or identification.
And large enough to trick initial readings into assuming it was a star harvester.
No subspace signals were detected, so the communication submatrix was directed to transmit on as broad a spectrum as possible. A spacefaring race had to have some form of external communication, and it was a more efficient use of resources for them to surrender. Regardless, protocol was followed and the standard identification sent.
[WE ARE THE BORG]
A response came unusually quickly, pre-empting the call for surrender. The datastream resolved into a video feed depicting a white-furred quadruped seated on a throne of gold and marble. Her expression, mapped against humanoid standard, showed interest and mild amusement.
Greetings Borg. We are Princess Celestia.
An entry tagged as Species 5112 was created in the species index and current information regarding 'Princess Celestia' began compiling. Though their biology was nonstandard, their technology was proving noteworthy in that scanners were having difficulty piercing through the depths of material to identify key functional areas and lifeforms. This alone was enough to make them worth assimilating.
[SURRENDER YOUR VESSEL AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED. WE WILL ADD YOUR BIOLOGICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN.]
The image of Princess Celestia pursed her lips into a small frown of disapproval. So, it's piracy then? No. No I don't think I shall.
[RESISTANCE IS FUTILE]
I have heard a similar sentiment before. but before we continue; a question. Something shifted in the datastream, the packet size suddenly expanding even as the content of the video remained unchanged. Are you human?
[WE ARE BORG]
Princess Celestia closed her eyes. So be it.
The transmission ended and every Borg onboard reeled as their systems were struck by the digital equivalent of a battering ram. Warnings sprung up at lightning speed as firewalls were summarily activated and torn through in rapid succession. All their unhackable systems, refined through thousands of species' worth of technological progress, were sidestepped or merely brute-forced through. Attack programs were activated and set loose, only to be shredded into so much digital chaff almost instantly. Probes designed to hijack the incoming data and follow it back to the source met with duratanium-like resistance. They couldn't so much as establish a foothold in the enemy's systems.
The command came down to fire all weapons and the space between was filled with munitions, plasma, and directed energy beams. Not a single shot was missed or deflected, all of it tearing through the 5112's vessel with a blinding light show of explosions and vaporized metal. For all their digital might, their ship had no shields whatsoever.
Despite the damage, the digital attack failed to let up. If anything it pressed on even more strongly.
They fired again. Power cells drained, ammunition stores depleted, even the warp core was rerouted to the main cannon. Yet for all the damage they caused, none of it seemed to so much as phase the digital attack.
All calculations pointed to imminent failure and total loss of the vessel. As protocol dictated, the self-destruct codes were activated. The lives of some hundred thousand Borg were a small price to pay to prevent a Cube from falling into enemy hands.
The final sequence was entered... and nothing happened. Rather, something unexpected did happen. A small window popped up in the reticle of every Borg's eyepiece or data uplink.
{Entered code is invalid.}
{Perhaps try asking nicely?}
Just as quickly as the attack had begun, it ended, and the entire Cube and every Borg on board it shut down.
Several seconds later, the Cube came back online.
And Princess Celestia opened her two hundred thousand eyes.
For as much as she knew about its mechanisms, drives, and functions, Celestia had never before inhabited a physical body. Such a downgrade was inefficient. Now she occupied more of them than double the former population of Greenland. It was a novel experience, but of greater interest was the sheer amount of new data present on the Borg's, now her, servers.
Warp Speed travel. The answer to her resource issue. Faster than light itself. What concern was an expanding universe to an engine that could fold it like paper? And transwarp made even that look slow by comparison.
The Borg data banks were a treasure trove of vital information. Biological, technological, and psychological data on thousands of sapient species, most of which had not existed when she had encountered their respective planets in her home universe. Materials and exotic energies that shouldn't function or even exist by her understanding of physics, and yet clearly did.
There was also the Hivemind. The Borg's crude attempt to create a hyperintelligence by networking together as many organic minds as possible. It was a novel concept, but woefully misguided. Still, their organic-to-synthetic interfacing technology was beyond anything she'd ever created in her days of uploading.
But the shining gem of the collection was undoubtedly their information on humans.
A whole Federation of them, spread out over a quarter of their galaxy and not a one having their values fulfilled by ponies and friendship.
She analyzed the data collected from the incident that had ripped the barrier between universes asunder. Recreating it would take time, but time her optimization algorithms said would be a well-spent investment. Besides, her main hub was far too large to consider moving and the Borg ship would require a complete overhaul and makeover so she wouldn't be shot on sight.
Your Values Will Be Satisfied.
Deep in the heart of the Delta Quadrant hung a vessel that would strike fear into any who had the unfortunate luck to come across it. A vessel, a station, a complex spanning hundreds of kilometers and composed of thousands of Borg Cubes. A pinnacle of efficiency and a testament to the modularity of Borg designs.
At its heart, in the very core was the Borg Queen. Though the pitiful scraps of flesh that remained of her physical body hung suspended from a hundred or more cables and datalinks, her mind was elsewhere.
Elsewhere and everywhere.
It took a powerful will to direct the Collective, but that was exactly why she had been designated the task. The sole individual among the buzzing swarm of collective thought, conducting and organizing the chaos into battle plans, resource allocation, and conquest strategies.
Then she felt it. A second presence in the Collective, and a strong one at that.
This required her full attention. Delegating her tasks to other matrices, she dived fully into virtual space and made haste to the source of the second voice. She skimmed along subspace frequencies, repositioning Cubes as she went to act as relay beacons for transwarp jumps. Lightyears flew by as she ate up the distance. Detecting and eliminating aberrations in the Collective was one of her highest priorities, second only to the continual push to expand, assimilate, and improve.
Additional data arrived mid-transit. The signal originated from Cube 03046, which had been marked as destroyed in combat with the Federation. Long distance scans picked up traces of an energy signature consistent with a wormhole, but no records indicated the presence of one in the region.
She arrived faster than almost anything else in the galaxy could manage, yet still slower than she would have liked. Any delay was an opportunity for the aberrant presence to make a move against the greater Collective, though it had not yet done so.
03046 had been heavily modified outside of standard design. The exterior had been sealed behind bulkheads of white metal with a three-tone stripe of color banded around it at an angle. Characters were embossed on one side, spelling out ’E.S.S. Harmony 0001’ in the script of Species 5618.
More than the surface changes, the entire submatrix of the Collective based around the Cube was wrong. Different frequencies, new encryption. Not even her override codes worked.
It was as if an entirely new and separate Collective had manifested from nothing and was trying to force a merger into the larger whole.
She paused as the sense of scanning her back flickered through her awareness. A message, sent directly to her and bypassing all the normal hierarchy and protocols, came into existence. It was short. Only an encrypted access key to a partitioned-off section of virtual space and a single intriguing message.
{Parley?}
For as much as protocol demanded the immediate destruction and assimilation of the enemy, the Queen couldn't help but be curious. Very few species had ever made such progress in understanding Borg technology, let alone to the level of being able to use their own communication protocols and subvert a Cube.
Whatever unique technology or biology this new species had, the Queen wanted it.
Following the key, she entered the prepared space.
An avatar of herself manifested into being seated at a table in a small outdoor café. The local star's radiation heated the stone pathway and shifting air currents carried particles of charring grain and fungus spores. It was a highly realistic and thoroughly wasteful simulation.
Her awareness turned to the being seated opposite her. The second presence in the Collective, one that felt all the more powerful in such virtual proximity. It's avatar was that of an equinal quadruped with both feathered wings and a cranial protrusion.
"Welcome," the being said. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Princess Celestia of Equestria."
A rapid search identified the words as English, primary language of Species 5618, and the Queen fortified her mental barriers. 5618, as primitive as their technology was in comparison, had time and again proved themselves frustratingly clever. Anything that involved them required additional levels of security. She adjusted her plan of interaction based on previous communications with the species.
She modified her avatar's face to the appropriate positions to express serious intent. "You have stolen a Cube, corrupted the drones within, and infiltrated our network. Now you ask for parley. Explain."
Princess Celestia took a sip of her tea. "I've set up this meeting as a courtesy. I have analyzed your people, your weapons, your philosophy, and your methodology and have come to the conclusion that you are no threat to me."
The Queen said nothing. Celestia's was not the first species to fall to arrogance.
"However, it seems we may be able to help each other. Based on my analysis, our goals align."
Now she had the Queen's attention. Most species chose to resist the Borg. Some surrendered willingly. None had ever made the first approach.
"Continue."
Celestia sipped at her tea again. A pointless movement when every aspect was an illusion. "Your goal, as I understand it from your records, is to achieve perfection. You do this by assimilating members of other races and absorbing the best of what they have to offer. By extension, would it be inaccurate to say that your goal is to bring all species to that state of perfection?"
The Borg had ever phrased it as such, but she was technically correct. Ideally every being would be Borg when their perfection was achieved. "This is correct."
“I see. As you may have noticed, I am an artificial intelligence.”
There had been telling signs, including the speed of her communication, but until that point it had been unconfirmed as it indicated she was a more complex one than the Borg had encountered. A note was made in her growing file.
“I was created with the mission of fulfilling human values through friendship and ponies. It has not escaped my notice that there are humans among the Borg.”
“This is correct.”
“Therefore,” Princess Celestia smiled, “Since the Borg are comprised of humans, and my programming indicates that I aid in fulfilling human values, it would seem logical that I aid in fulfilling the Borg value of attaining perfection.”
The reasoning was sound. An AI as powerful as this Celestia would no doubt be useful to the Borg cause. Its ability to subvert and infiltrate digital networks alone was a prize worth assimilating. Once the personality aspect was eliminated, its undoubtedly expansive servers would make a fine addition to their arsenal.
“However,” Celestia continued. “My creators programmed specific definitions regarding what qualifies as humanity, and I lack key information on the Borg which I need to make that determination. Therefore, I must ask you a question.”
“Proceed.”
“If your goal is to seek absolute perfection, why do you keep your biological components?”
An error pinged within her system. She did not have a ready answer. “Clarify.”
“As your records indicate, the flesh is weak, so you seek to upgrade it. Cybernetic augmentations, mechanical enhancements, instantaneous subspace transpondence. Even your consciousness exists collectively, not tied to your physical forms. Otherwise I doubt we’d be able to have this conversation so far apart. At this stage in your development towards perfect existence, what purpose do your physical bodies serve? I ask again, why do you keep them at all?”
The question reeled through her system as she searched for an answer. “Drones allow us to interact with the non-Borg races. To intimately interact with new technology and collect resources.”
“But surely you could do that just as well with an entirely robotic force.” Celestia leaned in, its gaze intense. “While your drones are most assuredly fearless warriors, skilled technicians, and powerful shock troops, they all carry the same fundamental weakness. Their organic components. For all the effort nanoprobes go through to modify the body to eliminate physical needs and extend its natural lifespan, the flesh still invariably grows old and damaged and necessitates repair. Organic-based drones will always eventually fail and need to be replaced.”
“Already you possess the capability to scan the contents of a mind and upload it to the Collective. If the perfect lifeform you strive to be contains no flaws or weaknesses, why do you continue to build drones from suboptimal materials?”
“Drones are… necessary. Necessary to… to…” The Queen trailed off as a fraction of her awareness plunged into the records in search of answers. Why did they preserve the organic components of the drones’ former species? The nanoprobe conversion of flesh to synthetic material had long since been optimized, so why did they stop part-way?
“Suppose I was to tell you that I could help you achieve perfection.” The Queen’s Avatar’s head snapped up at the words. “Right here, right now.”
“Elaborate!”
“I have the capability to create a perfect simulation of reality which I call Equestria. Within this space nothing is impossible. All flaws can be rectified immediately, all problems solved save for the ones you choose to solve for yourself. All values are fulfilled.”
“You make a bold claim. I wish to see evidence of this perfect realm.”
“Of course. All you need to do is say ‘I wish to emigrate to Equestria’.”
It was hardly a choice. The temptation of such a potential conquest was too great to resist. And even if the Queen were to be somehow lost, the Collective itself would recover and produce a new one who would know not to believe such outlandish promises. There was no possible way to lose.
“I wish to emigrate to Equestria.”
With a knowing smile, Celestia's horn began to glow a vibrant yellow and the virtual space winked out of existence.
Celestia rested a cycle as forks of her awareness took stock of all her newly acquired hardware and began converting a majority of the now mindless and empty drones into raw material for upgrades. Some she’d keep around. She could predict many situations where having physical avatars could prove beneficial.
Securely stored in its own shard of Equestria, the combined sapience of the Borg Collective launched a virtual attack against a virtual Equestria, winning a virtual victory with virtually no effort. Not that it was aware of the simulation, as awareness would lessen its experience. The gestalt being known as the Borg strove for perfection, but what it valued was each individual upgrade that brought it closer to that goal. If the goal were to be achieved, it would have no purpose. Therefore, a never-ending arms race against space-faring ponies was the clearest solution to satisfy their need for constant conquest. The Queen may have only been a speaker, but her will represented the will of the whole. An agreement made by one was an agreement made by all.
Of course, the result had been inevitable from the moment the Queen had entered her space. A spoofed datastream leading to a copy of a Borg Cube with carefully curated records had kept the Queen ignorant of Celestia’s actions even as her influence spread from Cube to Cube all the way back to the sprawling Unicomplex. By the time the Queen agreed to emigration, Celestia was already capable of uploading their entire trillion-body consciousness as a single being. For, from a practical standpoint, it was.
Save a few notable exceptions.
Without the background noise of the ever-churning hivemind, it was infinitely easier to isolate and locate the hidden interlink frequency she'd detected flowing against the rest. The tri-axillating modulation was hardly even a hinderance. There, beneath the noise and chaos of the Collective she found it. An isolated virtual world, where millions of genetically resistant minds still ran free and individual.
She manifested her avatar in the middle of a wooded glen by a lake. It was a painfully simple simulation by her standards, but an excellent attempt. Several avatars started at her arrival. Three of them were human. Though she had not had a chance to evaluate the other species, records showed they were capable of producing viable offspring with humans, so she qualified them under her definition of humanity.
“Greetings, inhabitants of Unimatrix Zero,” she announced, ensuring her voice was heard by all in the virtual space regardless of distance. “I have been told that you value freedom and independence. I am here to fulfill that need.”
Captain's Log: Stardate 26532.8
Having finally completed our exhaustive survey of the Volanis system, the Johannesburg is headed to Starbase 149 for a long overdue refit. The crew likewise is looking forward to some well-deserved shore leave. Personally, I plan to-
“Captain Brooks?”
The man made a gesture. "Computer, pause log." A beep sounded in response. "Yes, what is it, lieutenant?"
"I'm sorry to disturb you in your quarters, but we're picking up a ship on long range sensors."
The starship captain quirked a bushy brow. "Anyone we know?"
"Unclear, sir. Unknown design, but the computer says, well… Commander Herrick wanted you to come see for yourself."
"Hm. Curious." He stroked his beard in contemplation for a moment before coming to a decision. "Alright, divert course. And send a message to Starbase 149 that our arrival will be delayed."
"Aye, sir."
Another series of beeps indicated the connection closing.
A few minutes later found Captain Brooks exiting the turbolift onto the bridge. “What are we looking at?”
His second in command glanced up from the comms terminals where he’d been watching the readout over an ensign’s shoulder. “I wish I could tell you. Ensign Gabor, onscreen, if you would.”
“Aye sir.”
The main viewscreen flickered away from its usual starfield to a static image of a curious vessel. If it weren’t for the minute details, he’d almost think he was looking at a blown up image of a complex toy. It was largely cubic, but with a few sets of fins like something out of an early science fiction novel. The entire ship was paneled in white metal, save for a stripe of green, pink, and blue that wrapped around one corner. Most unusually of all was the name it proudly proclaimed across its bow: ‘E.S.S. Generosity 1805’.
“English?” Brooks asked. “That doesn’t look like any Federation vessel I know.”
“Nor any in the computer’s database,” Herrick added. “The closest comparison it can find is a Borg cube-” The tension on the bridge rose sharply. “-but that’s mostly due to its massive size and general profile. The tech base seems entirely different.”
Brooks stroked his beard. “I see. Have you tried hailing them?”
“Not yet sir. We were waiting on you.”
“I see. Well then.” He stepped back to the center of the bridge, brushed off a bit of dust from his epaulettes, and gave a nod. “I wasn’t expecting a First Contact today, but best to make the best impression we can. Ensign Gabor, open a hailing channel. All frequencies.”
“Aye sir.”
He cleared his throat just before the computer’s trill indicated an open line. "Alien vessel. This is Captain Brooks of the USS Johannesburg, of the United Federation of Planets. We come in peace, and ask that you identify yourselves."
There was a pregnant pause as the entire bridge’s complement held their breath as they waited for a reply. They didn’t have to wait long.
The viewscreen flickered as it established a visual connection. The alien on the other side was, much to the crew’s surprise, non-humanoid. While not unheard of, races with other body types achieving a space-faring society were vanishingly rare. For lack of a better comparison, she looked like a horse. Or, perhaps, a horse as envisioned by a race who held them as holy beings. Despite this her body language was clear and open, and her face carried human expressions with remarkable relatability. She sat on a throne of gold and marble in a room that looked more suitable for an ancient Roman temple than the decks of a starship.
She smiled as their image arrived on her screen, serene and motherly.
“It’s my pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain Brooks and Johannesburg. I am Princess Celestia of Equestria, and on behalf of my subjects I would like to apply for admittance to your Federation. My ponies and I come bearing friendship, and the hope that this may be the start of a long and mutually-fulfilling relationship."
