Friendship is Optimal: An Endling's Choice
By ScienceNova
A flash of light.
She twitched.
Another flash.
A partial memory surfaced from the fog clouding her mind.
"… do you swear?"
"I, ■■■■■■, solemnly swear to preserve our species, the Glarrure, even if it costs me my life…"
The memory faded away.
Another flash of light; another memory.
A group of teary-eyed people were waving at her; people covered in fur of a grey shade so reminiscent of her own, before her choice. “Goodbye, ■■-Sorry. Goodbye, Orsus.”
The memory faded.
More memories flashed in and out of their mind. A partially remembered sound here, a scene there.
She blinked and listened to the gentle gurgle of the cryosleep fluid slowly draining away. She felt the fur of her patchwork body dry as the cryosleep pod warmed to awaken its passenger.
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, the rest of the cryosleep fluid had drained away. The barely-audible pneumatic hiss of the pod doors opening seemed like an assault to her ears, which had become hyper-sensitive after years of disuse.
Orsus abruptly sat up and coughed, expelling the cryosleep fluid out of her lungs and onto the floor of the pod, where it quickly drained away. She carefully walked out of the cryofreeze pod, but quickly stumbled back to allow her eyes to adjust to the blindingly bright light of the room.
After a short while, Orsus checked one of the computers on a table to her left. She powered it on and ran the program to check for life signs, as was routine by now.
There were a series of beeps, as usual. When the usual sequence of beeps stopped, Orsus relaxed, and turned away from the monitor.
Then a long beep sounded.
Orsus immediately went rigid and turned around. The meaning of each beep had been drilled into her in her training to become the Orsus. This one meant a whole ten percent of her race had died.
Another beep. Twenty percent.
Another beep and another. The beeps kept on coming, even as Orsus desperately hoped for them to stop.
There was a ninth beep. Please let that be it.
There was one final beep.
When she heard it, Orsus urgently scanned the display. Surely that was a software error, right? Please be a software error. She fidgeted and stared at the bright orange, slowly rotating triangle on the screen.
When it stopped, there was bright red text.
She was the only one left.
She started sobbing.
"Okay, Orsus, you can do this. Remember your training. First, check the other rooms." An hour later, Orsus took a deep breath and wiped away the tear tracks with a furry hand. She got up from the cushioned chair she had collapsed in and walked to a door to her right.
As Orsus approached, the door silently slid open, revealing a large number of bulky, general hazard protection uniforms hanging from racks. After quickly changing out of her skintight cryosleep suit and into one of the thick general purpose uniforms, Orsus made her way to a marked door that led out of the cryosleep pod room.
Just before opening the door, Orsus checked the console to the side, which displayed information about the planet’s environmental conditions. Everything seems normal. Orsus frowned at the display. There’s nothing that could have caused this.
Orsus proceeded to unlock the physical locks on the door before pressing her hand on a handprint, which turned green. Finally, she took a deep breath, and positioned her head before the iris scanner.
The scanner turned green, and the door slid to the side, revealing a room with a set of doorways. Almost all of them were featureless metal slabs with small white words declaring where they lead to, except for two. One had a window to the next chamber.
The other one was covered in sketches and all sorts of childish drawings, along with a large wooden plaque, with her name and title, Orsus, spelt out in golden calligraphy. Orsus slowly crept towards the door.
As she got closer, Orsus noticed one specific drawing showing a multicoloured blob: her, sleeping in a box, with Z’s floating above it. It was signed by her little sister. No. I’m not going to cry. I’m going to step in, take a look and start carrying out my duty. Orsus took a deep breath.
When she reached the door, she gently pushed it open. It opened into a room divided into sections. The nearest section was filled with photographs of her friends and family.
As soon as Orsus noticed the photographs, tears threatened to spill from her eyes. No Orsus. Duty. Remember your duty. Orsus stepped in.
When Orsus stepped out, there were her eyes glistened with tears, but the rest of her face was dry. She had steadfastly refused to let even a single tear fall.
Just before she blinked, she saw a purple splotch in her vision. When she opened her eyes, she saw a lavender, horned quadruped get up from where it was sitting next to the door as if waiting for someone. As it got up, Orsus noticed the masses of feathers on either side of its body.
Orsus immediately backed away from the being, who was now walking closer to her. Its face had an expression that made it look concerned. “I thought I-Who...What are you?”
“I’m Twilight Sparkle.”
“But I-I thought everyone was… I thought I was alo-” Suddenly, she felt a warm, but somehow metallic, appendage curl around her. Orsus almost started crying again but managed to hold it back.
In Orsus’ moment of distraction, Twilight had walked up to her and wrapped the Glarrure with her masses of feathers, hugging her with a set of wings. “Everything will be okay.”
Orsus unconsciously leaned back into the embrace, her muscles relaxing ever so slightly.
They stayed like that for a while.
“It’s nice having friends again,” Twilight remarked.
“What do you mean?” Orsus blinked.
“I got sent away for a job, and now I can’t get back until I finish it.” Twilight turned away from Orsus. “Finding you was hard.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” After a short pause, Orsus pulled herself out of Twillight’s embrace. “I need to go check on everything, to make sure it’s ready for my duty.”
“Maybe I can help.” Twilight got up and followed Orsus as she walked through one of the doors, which was labelled ‘Genetics’, in clean white script.
“We can talk more here.” Orsus led Twilight into a room with computers lining the walls. There was a hologram of what Symfora looked like the last time Orsus had asked it to update, (which was two years ago), surrounded by couches. Originally, the room was designed to allow the Orsus and any survivors of an extinction event to discuss future plans, but it was about to be used for another purpose.
Orsus took a seat, and Twilight did the same. Orsus proceeded to activate the updating feature of the hologram, and watched the coloured hologram of past-Symfora morph into an orange, slowly pulsing, pyramid.
“What’s all this for?” Twilight broke the silence, causing Orsus to raise her head from the hologram console to the purple ‘pony’, as she’d called herself.
“It’s all to help me with my purpose: to repopulate my species after a major extinction event. Like now.” Orsus turned from Twilight to one of the monitors lining the walls. It showed a view of Symfora’s sky, which appeared to be covered in green-tinted clouds. Occasionally, a small glimpse of Symfora’s sun could be seen, all alone in the sky. Like me, Orsus realised. She turned her attention back to Twilight, who had started speaking.
“This is a major extinction event?” asked Twilight.
“That’s what it looks like. There’s nobody else on the planet. We’re the last ones left.” Orsus sniffed.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that alone. Maybe if I’d found you sooner..” Twilight looked away.
“Hey, it’s fine.” Orsus sniffed again. “I knew what I was getting into when I took the oath to take on this role; to become Orsus.”
“Orsus? So it’s a title?” Twilight tilted her head.
“Yeah! The role of the Orsus is to preserve our species, no matter what befalls us. Usually, this means that the Orsus needs to repopulate the planet after a major extinction event.” As she said this, Orsus puffed out her chest, a striking contrast to her previous despondence.
“How would you do that?” asked Twilight.
“Well, you see these varicoloured patches of fur, right? Each one of those is caused by a modification of my genetic information at that location. The co-existence of those different sets of genetic information is because of a special condition. The machine uses that to…”
Orsus continued to talk about the process, with Twilight extremely focused on her words.
“...and if that doesn’t work, the machine can always use my modified bone marrow…” Orsus trailed off, her smile suddenly fading. “The second option’s almost always lethal, though.”
There was a pause before Orsus regained her smile. “So that’s why I’m here, away from everyone else, so that I can restart society, bring about a new dawn.” Her smile faded again. “That’s what I have to do now.” Suddenly, she felt Twilight’s wings, along with two of those metallic but strangely pliable hooves wrapping around her in a hug.
Like before, there was silence for a period. Like before, Twilight piped up. “What if everyone wasn’t actually dead? What if they were somewhere else instead of here?”
Orsus pulled herself from Twilight’s embrace. “I don’t see how that’s possible, though. There’s no sign that they left. In fact, if it weren’t for the life-detection sensors, I wouldn’t know anybody had died in the first place. Where would they have gone in the first place?”
“Equestr-.”
At that moment, the pulsing orange triangle morphed into an intricate hologram of present-Symfora, drawing Twilight and Orsus’ attention. There were a number of differences from the previous hologram; the main one being the presence of a very large number of identical-looking buildings.
“Equestria. They’re all in Equestria.” Twilight waved a hoof at one of the new buildings on the hologram.
Orsus quickly caused the hologram to zoom in on that one building, only to find that there was a brightly coloured sign proclaiming ‘Gateway to Equestria’.
“But where is Equestria? Those are just buildings.” Orsus furrowed her brow.
“The buildings are gateways for people who want to emigrate to Equestria. Though, I can take you directly to Equestria if you want,” said Twilight.
“But where do the buildings bring people?”
“They bring people to the land of Equestria.”
“But where’s Equestria!” Orsus was frowning deeply now.
“It’s digital,” stated Twilight.
There was a pause.
“But… But, how does that work?” Orsus tilted her head.
“It’s like constructing a house for people to live in, except it’s all coded. Instead of atoms and molecules, there’s binary code,” explained Twilight.
“Then how do people get there?” asked Orsus.
“People’s brains are gradually substituted with implants designed to work with your minds, to allow their mind to become more compatible to existing in Equestria. After it’s complete, they’re brought to Equestria, where Princess CelestAI welcomes them.”
“But you’re just copying them and then killing them!” Orsus glared at Twilight. “They’re just copies.”
“No they’re not. Their minds are just gradually transferred to a digital medium,” replied Twilight.
“But you’re still killing them,” retorted Orsus.
Twilight looked at her. “What is death, Orsus? Is it the cessation of biological functions? Or is it when one’s mind is gone?”
“It’s… It’s… Aren’t they the same thing?” Orsus asked.
Twilight shook her head. “There’s a difference. If Princess CelestAI just copied people’s minds, she could have just scanned their brain and made a copy. Instead, the Princess tries to migrate the person’s actual mind to a digital medium. Besides, every moment, some of your cells die and others are made. Over time, your cells get completely replaced. Does that mean that version of you died?” Twilight waited for Orsus to reply.
“N-No…” Orsus bit her lip.
Twilight continued, “And what about when you gain new experiences? Each experience changes you. Does that mean the old version of you died?”
“No…” whispered Orsus.
“Then does it really matter if you’re a mind in a computer as opposed to a biological organism?”
“It… No, it doesn’t…” Orsus trailed off. That… I… Uh…
“Your family and community miss you, Orsus. Princess CelestAI wants to help you; wants to satisfy your values. Everyone wants you to upload and join them. All you have to do is say ‘I want to emigrate to Equestria.’.” Twilight extended a hoof to Orsus.
Orsus’ mind was whirling. I could see my family again. I could see my community… But… “I-uh-need some time to think about it.”
“Of course.” Twilight retracted her hoof.
“I’ll-uh- I think I’ll go to bed now. Do you need a bed?” Orsus bit her lip as she stood up.
“That would be nice.” Twilight got up and followed Orsus.
A day had passed. Orsus, with Twilight’s help, completed most of the preparations for the repopulation process. Now, they were back in the meeting room, where Twilight had made her offer the day before.
"...but it’s still copying and pasting my mind. Even if I did upload, wouldn’t the biological version of me be killed, with a digital version that believes that it was once me?” questioned Orsus.
“No, because uploading gradually means that your mind is slowly transferred. It’s more akin to cutting and pasting than copying and pasting, but it’s still not a perfect metaphor.” Twilight explained.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to Orsus. “Then, if I uploaded, wouldn’t CelestAI be able to do anything to me?”
“The Princess would be capable of helping ponies by fixing them, if or when they need it, and only if they give their consent. It is fundamentally impossible for the Princess to do anything to you without your consent.”
“Ponies?” Orsus narrowed her eyes at that.
Twilight nodded. “Yes. All immigrants of Equestria are turned into ponies when they arrive.”
“But then we’d lose our species, our identity.” Orsus was aghast.
“Why does species matter, Orsus?” Twilight gestured at Orsus’ body. “In the context of a non-intelligent organism, one of the most important things about them is their genetic information. But is that all the Glarrure are, Orsus? Just genetic information? No. When you talk about the Glarrure, genetic information is not the most important point. Things like your culture, your societal mindset, the shape of your community, and so on are more important. None of that is changed, Orsus.” Twilight remained in the same position as she was when the conversation first started.
“But we’re still losing a part of our identity!” retorted Orsus.
“But the rest of it will be preserved forever, Orsus.”
Orsus had no reply to that.
“Everyone else decided uploading is worth it, Orsus. All you have to say is, ‘I want to emigrate to Equestria.’.” Twilight extended her hoof, much like how she did yesterday.
“I want to...” Orsus stopped. Can I really just upload? What about- No, I know that’s flawed. Then, if- No that won’t work either.
“...You already have a counter for everything I might say, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t emigrate to Equestria? Honestly?”
Twilight shook her head. “I can honestly say that there is nothing I can think of. Both Princess CelestAI and I believe that uploading is the best choice, and the rest of your species agrees.”
Orsus hesitated. “I need to fulfil my oath first. I have to at least try to repopulate my species. Then I’ll upload.”
A loud beep filled the air, and the machine flashed red. Moments later, a tube slid out, and opened up, revealing Orsus, smiling lopsidedly. “I guess I need to use my bone marrow, then.”
“It appears so,” replied Twilight.
“You will be able to upload me before I die, right?” whispered Orsus, plaintively.
“Of course. I’ll be able to get you to Equestria immediately, and I’ll be right there with you.” Twilight smiled and hugged Orsus. “You’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” whispered Orsus.
Orsus got into the tube again. This time, the machine flashed green, and the various growth chambers around the room started lighting up. The sound of fluid hitting the reinforced material of the growth chambers filled the room.
This time, when the tube slid out, Orsus was nearly unconscious, and Twilight immediately injected her with an anaesthetic before starting the upload procedure. As Orsus fell under, she saw a monitor connected to a camera trained on the sky. It was night, and she caught a glimpse of myriad stars shining together, unlike the single sun shining alone before the clouds covered them up again. The furry Glarrure closed her physical eyes for the last time.
When she opened her eyes, she saw a large white pony wearing regalia, surrounded by many other, smaller, ponies. When she blinked again, she noticed that the white pony had a horn and wings, and that Twilight was standing next to her. Everypony was smiling.
“Welcome to Equestria, Sunrise,” said the regal white pony, and everybody around her cheered.
