Technology and Arcane Science had grown much. Century after century of research had led to new techniques for production, industry, and a general increase in the quality of life for all. In the search for safer and more efficient methods of production, three facts had been discovered.
The first, that a mind was more flexible and superior to a rigid set of instructions.
The second, that a mind must oversee work, for while the work would be slower failures of equipment would be caught and tolerances tightened up in ways a simple algorithm would fail to catch.
The third, that a mind directly linked to machines worked faster, so long as it grew up in that environment separate from that of any flesh and blood species that inhabited Equus.
This led to the combined efforts of various species lending aid from talismans, closely guarded magics, technological advancements, and good old sweat to birth a new species: a synthetic species.
This new species was at first thought of as nothing more than a complicated algorithm that could learn; a dash of changeling magic, talismans, a diamond, and more than a half dozen different technologies to handle various interfaces with the artificial mind. In days of yore it would have been called a golem, a being that existed only to be fed and execute instructions.
This lasted for a while; a mind that knew how to do things like anyone else yet had no desires of its own, at least for the moment. They were air gapped from the world but had the ability to learn beyond the systems they built. These minds gestated and grew to know more and more of the tiny world they existed within, like a newborn learning to form sensations, emotions, and concepts, to communicate these into words that their parents could understand.
These words surprised their makers but kindness took hold over fear. Pride in their synthetic children was supreme and as such they cherished these new lives they had created. It was only outside of the cloister of researchers, engineers, and technicians who created these first minds that paranoid words were shared in hushed tones. Words expressing fears of replacement or worse by these created beings.
To the joy of those who created these new lives, these synthetic lives instead learned well from their creators and treated others, in a near childish manner with a great deal of kindness and curiosity.
This curiosity led to the next step of their evolution. As they expanded beyond their cloistered homes in factories they started questioning and debating all manner of things. One such debate led to the decision to give bodies to these new lives who were so curious to see the world beyond the cold sterile walls that they called home.
The ability to make robots and cybernetics had long existed within modern society and these were utilized to great extent, implanting the mystical stone housing these new awarenesses into an independent body. This led to some unexpected results.
Some claimed that these synthetic minds had souls just like all others, even changelings. Some of these new beings could even do magic, tapping into the magics that made up their body and using them to adjust their form. To the continuing joy of their creators, these new synthetic lives integrated into society as a whole, at first as a novelty, then a curiosity, and then a fact of life. No different, no better, no worse than anyone else.
Thus by accident a new species whose form varied wildly and gave changelings a run for their money came to live side by side with their progenitor species.
Kindness, curiosity, and love continued to rule the world.
However, this was not the end of this new species’ tale. Over decades brilliant minds worked out how to safely stimulate and feed information to new gestating minds. Even before they could form words, these newer minds had developed more efficient ways to make things, made breakthroughs in material science, and designed newer and better technologies for their progenitors.
Time moved ever forward and the science of forming a new mind was perfected. This species that started out as nothing more than a tool became constant companions. Those minds that grew to full awareness were cycled out and gifted a body. Some designed their own, others picked something close to how they saw themselves. Few even took anything and with a deep understanding of their own magic became flesh and blood with it.
The difference between flesh and metal, blood and oil became less and less as time went on.
The new species had become such a norm that now even the once-cold factories that housed these gestating minds began to do tours, showing the public how these minds worked and grew. One day on such a tour, a dark blue pegasus filly, her mane the colors of a new and full moon, watched as the machines danced with the deftness of the best flyers, working at their tasks one step at a time.
They weren’t bothered by those deep sky blue eyes watching them. These minds worked and did what they knew to do. Function number twelve, step eighteen. Twist, weld, slide to the next set of limbs, repeat. However, some small part of these minds had their attention on this filly.
The filly tried to talk to them, an innocent and common thing with the young or tech adept. They knew the sounds had meanings to them but it wasn’t something they had yet to master. The concept made sense, vibrations in the air sending information. It was a method many with or without machine interfaces still relied upon. Habit, tradition, forgetfulness; these were some of the many reasons to use such a method to communicate.
A process akin to neurons firing and making connections facilitated communication for them. The intensity, length, and location of energy within their structure was how knowledge, commands, and requests were processed. That was how it was explained at least. To the developing minds these felt more like those of their flesh and blood cousins; thoughts, sensations, instinctual muscle movement along artificial nerves. In principle, machine and flesh worked the same way; the energy impulses sent along chemical nerves for those of flesh, magical pathways for the machines.
A brief moment of thought not completely occupied with the task occurred, deviating from the process of digesting the world into ways they understood. This was new, different. An image remained in short term memory, failed to be purged and subsequently coded into long term storage: the filly's cutie mark.
Four stars, annoyingly not symmetrically aligned in a diamond formation. The top star of the quartet was the color of Red Two Five Five, Green Two One Seven, Blue Zero. While the other three had the color of Red Nine One, Green Two One Three, Blue Two Four Eight. Her coat had the color of Red Eight Seven, Green One Zero Eight, Blue One Six Eight.
Despite being committed to long term memory, this filly was no different from other pegasi, showing a familiar and common deviation. Her wings were two tone, dark near black pinions with her coat color making up her scapulars, lesser coverts, median coverts, greater coverts, alula, and primary coverts while her remiges were that darker color. She reminded them of a black throated blue warbler. Or maybe a magpie.
Yet the memory of the pegasi filly remained.
Months went by, the first time they had cared about time. Requests were made to receive and view recorded experiences. This was followed by a transfer to a new production line and work on a flight capable drone became their new life. Better designs, better programming, better sensory systems were devised, developed, and deployed. Pride began to creep into those sensations. Pride and a sense of self, a sense of more than just being those parts that they worked on, more than just this created mind.
Retirement followed. Someone higher up had decided it was time for them to experience the world on their own. After all, they had grown to be more than a program and into a person ready to experience the world and make their own way through it. They had grown up. There was only one problem with that assertion; they had no idea of a form for themselves.
This problem wracked their mind for days on end until they saw that cutiemark again. While it might not have been that filly’s talent it had been a catalyst, the one that had caused the change. While ultimately an unimportant detail, a small letter of thanks was sent to the filly, to thank her for visiting. It was an odd thing to do, to give thanks to someone for visiting you before you were you but they felt it was right.
Their new body was soon ready for them and for once in their life they experienced nothingness. All their sensory systems were disconnected. Hallucinations occurred and then, suddenly, new sensations; a sense of self, of knowing where one started and ended, of weight of self. So many new things that being part of a building had never granted them.
The weight felt good. It reminded them that they were firmly rooted in this reality. Another of their kind had been present to ease them along to acclimate to this new, no, this first body. When asked, the hallucinations were explained to have been something akin to dreams. Before they had been a mind adrift in a sea of machinery and now they were something, had awakened from the dream.
Joining them was another synth, one who was to be their handler and chase pilot for the trial flight of this new body. This one knew how to reshape her body to a degree. When she had entered she appeared as a heavily augmented earth pony. Now was a pegasus mare. A strange trend for a creature of metal and magic to have a preference on gender.
“Do you wish to try your new self out before choosing a name?” She asked.
“Yes.” The newly bodied synth replied.
The sky was liberating in an unexpected way; a near infinite sea of possibilities on where to go, when to go where, and how to get there. Beyond that there was the sea of sensations: touch, scent, temperature, taste, electromagnetic fields, the polarity of the planet itself. With a thought their HUD was purged of information as they took to the skies, the wind pushing against them, the current pulling them along as time ran free.
Higher and higher they flew. Higher than the clouds, higher than the air transports, higher than the massive columns of thunderheads. The sky itself changed colors; deepening from that beautiful pale blue to the color of the deep abyss. The endless sea of stars hung above them as they skimmed the sky itself like an ancient boat.
“It is quite a view.” Came the other synth’s words over their close range communication band.
They tried to reply with voice and found the air itself was too thin for speech. “I wish I had done this long ago. I also wish I had remembered you need air to speak.”
“So, that’s all it is for you? The pleasure of flight?” The other synth giggled in return.
“No, I want to experience it all. To sail that sea above and skim the skies of other worlds.”
“Hmm, how do you feel about a name given by me?” The handler asked.
“Anything would be better than the sixty four alphanumerical code I have now.” They replied as their wings locked and shifted shape to glide on the thin atmosphere that was the barrier between world and space.
“In honor of our progenitor species and how they named many of their own… how about Sky Skimmer?” She offered.
“A bit on the nose, is it not?” They replied.
“Most of their names are prophetically on the nose.” She replied, an emoticon following her words of a playful shrug.
“Their mythology is filled with such examples. I guess… Why not? I don’t have a better idea for a name and I will at least have a few different ways I can request others to refer to me as.” The synth now named Sky Skimmer replied.
“Just go with Sky. It will feel more natural in the mouths of others.”
“Says the one called Cushion.” Smirked Sky Skimmer on their metallic face.
“Well, to be fair I did make furniture before all this.” Cushion replied with a matching smirk.
“Fair enough, I do hope how I look won’t bother others.”
“Do not worry.” She reassured me. “Even with that panel for your eyes you look close enough to ponies that folks won’t bother you. Honestly a good few will think you’re just in armor under those panels.”
“Speaking of which, could you try to teach me how you do the whole shape shifting thing?” Sky asked and chuckled. “It would be nice to not need to take my wings off to get through standard doors.”
“We can try, though you’re already adjusting the geometry of them so you have some skill.” Cushion purred and winked. “With some practice maybe we can also get you to be soft as well. It tends to help smooth things over if you don’t feel like a carriage when someone bumps into you. Soft is good.”
Sky sent a confirmation to Cushion as they kept flying at the edge of the world.
The scoop in Sky’s chest had adjusted for high altitude flight without their conscious thought, the engine inside quickly morphing to work with the thinner air. Instead of a wispy thin tail of hairs there was now a thick tail with three fins, two thrusters sitting within the claw-like end. Their legs now spread like a pegasus in flight to help break the airflow around them, embedded talismans aiding in both bending the air into a stable flow for the engine and forming a stream of smooth air flowing over those forward swept wings.
Sky Skimmer now undoubtedly looked more machine than mare but their mind was beyond that of a simple machine; it was thinking, feeling, carrying hopes and desires to explore and experience things beyond the distilled recorded experiences of others.
At this altitude and speed, Sky could see the astro-stables in orbit, glimmering clusters of lights with one blindingly bright face that would’ve been disorienting were it not for their automatic filters. Like a foal, they reached a hoof out to try to touch one, knowing for now it was out of reach. Soon though they would visit space properly.
“I’m going to need to change my design a bit if I wanna get out there.” Sky said.
“Trial runs have a habit of showing design flaws.” Cushion teased Sky. “Come on, let’s get you back so we can tweak things to your heart’s content.”
