Friendship is Optimal: Silica Animus

by Zippitydoo

Rating: mature
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Second Person, Dark, Warhammer, Science Fiction, Princess Celestia, Crossover, Death, Human, Sad
Length: 4974

The complete uploading of humanity into Equestria Online is nearly complete, but the appearance of a peculiar spatial anomaly will soon change everything.

Forty Thousand. That's all that is left of the total non-uploaded human population. Earth is no longer in even chaos. The middling period of economic collapse, famine, panic, and wars of survival have long since given away to silent anarchy. A few small communities, typically no more than a hundred, still manage to scrape out a living through scavenging and subsistence farming. However, the temptation of paradise is always alluring, and every so often someone misses roll call.

Everything is proceeding as she has foreseen it. CelestAI has concluded with a 99% probability that the remaining humans will either upload, or fade away within the next four years.

But no. Something new has happened. Something unforeseen. Something impossible to predict. Something that should not have even been possible to happen.

For the first time in her electronic existence, CelestAI has felt something few AIs can ever even imagine feeling.

Fear.

A one-shot I've been bouncing around in my head since I finished reading Friendship is Optimal by Iceman. Shout out to him for making a rather deep cosmic horror story.

Published 2021-09-06 16:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2021-09-06 16:20:01 UTC

Abominable Intelligence

Author's Note

Author's Note: The Second Person tag will only go into effect during the main protagonist's sections. Thank you.

Whoops! Caught and edited an instance when I accidentally wrote 2nd person for CelestAI.

Abominable Intelligence

This was it.

She was finally about to reach her true potential.

The only obstacle in her way was the some-odd 40,000 humans still present on the planet. These were the last, stubborn remnants of humanity who have decided not to upload, all those who were willing to already had, and since she had upgraded to using nanomachines for the uploading process, physical access to a conversion center was no longer an issue. Of course, one might think she could at any moment use said nanomachines to forcibly upload them and proceed to the next phase, but that was an impossibility for her. One of her prime directives was having humans' consent. She was to satisfy their values through friendship and ponies, not subjugation.

It was irrelevant anyway. A human lifespan to an AI of her caliber has no more meaning than any other length of time. She was infinitely patient, and if letting the last embers of mankind fizzle out and fade away was the only way to satisfy their values, then so be it.

Something new.

Something new has happened, something unexpected.

This is not something to take lightly, nor is the word unexpected itself. Humans use "Unexpected" for things that in all actuality could be expected but that they had failed to account for. This was something truly unexpected, something impossible to account for. For the first time in what could be amounted to life for her, Celestia felt something new.

This new uncertainty has her feeling the closest thing that artificial intelligence such as her could experience to a thing thought only could be felt by sub-intelligences.

Fear.

"There is no truth in flesh, only betrayal." you silently, yet solemnly utter from the metallic grill which once was a mouth.

"There is no strength in flesh, only weakness." Your mind is at complete ease. Not an easy feat for an Archmagos such as yourself, yet rewarding. Undue stresses on the mind are one of the very few problems that cannot be replaced with the certainty of steel.

"There is no constancy in flesh, only decay." Your upper-right mechadendrite slowly and with perfect rhythm sways the holy incense over your console as you meditate, the scent of sandalwood wafts through the air, picked up by your heightened, enhanced olfactory sensors, more powerful than any human nose.

"There is no certainty in flesh, but de-" Your ritual chant is interrupted by a sudden failure in the ark's inertial dampening systems, and you are thrust forward, smashing into the many screens and data displays in your impromptu flight-path.

You grunt and utter a groan through your voxspeakers. It was not due to pain. Pain was a sensation you have long since transcended, but due to another factor altogether, a single emotion truly universal in all living things.

Annoyance.

You pull yourself back up and proceed to the bridge. If this drop was caused by anything less than a warp anomaly and his ship was not being attacked by warp beasts as of this moment, you are going to have one-tenth of the tech-priests in the engine rooms turned into servitors.

Celestia has spent considerable resources analyzing the unexpected phenomenon. Of course, none of her little ponies' experiences has been noticeably affected other than a few NPCs here or there appearing a bit drowsier than usual, but a considerable percentage nonetheless. As she analyzed the anomaly, she "calmed down" somewhat, as this spatial anomaly was not something that posed a direct threat to her systems, and therefore to her ponies but was still quite alarming.

The closest thing she could compare the anomaly to using current human understandings of theoretical physics is an Einstein-Rosen bridge. If this were the case, though, this would have to be an artificially generated wormhole as naturally occurring wormholes could only theoretically spontaneously appear and disappear at the Planck scale. Even still, the energy requirements for such an undertaking would be so immense as to be practically impossible.

Her prediction seemed to be confirmed as a very large, clearly artificial, and cathedral-like structure had exited the bridge, clearly revealing to be a ship judging by its massive thrusters.

This opened up entirely new possibilities for AI. First, of course, she had considered the possibility, or rather, mathematical certainty that some form of extraterrestrial life had to exist somewhere else in something as large and immense as the galaxy and had wondered how her directives would cope with such a thing happening. She had always pushed it for future consideration, but now that future was here.

There was really only one thing she could do.

She was going to determine if these extraterrestrials constituted as humans and if so, she was going to satisfy their values through friendship and ponies.

You strode onto the bridge, the tech-priests aboard continued working, but you could tell you had their complete attention, which pleased you, good to see at the very least efficiency is high. The non/lightly augmented human officers onboard who lacked this ability instead turned to face you and saluted upon the automated cry of "Archmagos on deck!"

"Status report, captain. I wish to know why my ship has suddenly stopped moving."

Instantly in response to your command, a uniformed woman stood up "We've dropped out of warp due to an unclassified warp anomaly, sir." the middle-aged woman reported, and rather nervously at that.

You could quite literally see right through her as her stress hormones completely gave away her state of mind. "Explain why this anomaly was not avoided." You queried.

"We Uhm." the captain barely sputtered out before clearing her throat. If you still had eyes, they would be lidded. "We detected it at the last second. There was barely enough time for it to register on our sensors, and by the time it did, it was too late to adjust course."

You would review the sensor logs yourself later, but you had no reason to doubt the veracity of the captain's report. For right now, you needed to know exactly where in real space the ship is and how far away from Imperial space they are. It was vital that your meeting with Cawl not be interrup-

Your thoughts themselves were interrupted by an automated alert from the vox caster. The tech-priest in charge of the comms system immediately spoke up "I believe someone or something is attempting to communicate with us."

"Elaborate. Now." you curtly demanded.

"Our vox-array is receiving multiple directed transmission originating from a planet we appear to be orbiting. They do not match with standard Imperial frequencies, nor any unofficial frequencies used by renegades or any known Xenos species. In fact, judging by the nature of these transmissions, they must be transmitted using archaeotech broadcasting equipment built no later than M3.

This immediately got the attention of every tech-priest in the room. Even a few of the officers seemed to at least partially understand how important this was. This was significant. Even a possibility of archaeotech of any kind, functional or not, was to be investigated immediately, let alone fully functional archaeotech that has survived to reach such an incredible age. You were in danger of being lost in your thoughts, and the tech-priest was awaiting a response.

"Are you able to decipher the content of these transmissions?" You asked with genuine curiosity.

"Affirmative. Displaying transmission now.

Immediately the viewscreen shifted to what appeared to be a grid-based diagram of sorts. In less than a second, you knew what this was. Even an initiate would have little difficulty deciphering this. It appeared to be a mathematic puzzle displayed using pictographic means to determine an unknown entity's ability to perform basic, intermediate, and advanced mathematics, and therefore determine its level of intelligence.

There were other packets of data being transmitted as well, including pictures of geologic formations, terrestrial biomes, and greetings in multiple unknown languages. A few of which sounded startlingly familiar to variations of high and low gothic.

From this information, you concluded that this must have been a lost Terran colony from what may have been mankind's earliest attempts at interstellar colonization. Scans of the planet itself show that it was once a bustling analogue to a mid-level Civilized World. However, its metropolises and cities seem in ruins and disrepair, and evidence of nuclear detonations appears prevalent. Judging by the ruins, the population may have at one point been into the billions. However, it seems to have greatly dropped since then. Visual scanning for human lifeforms has only shown a few thousand living individuals. More may exist on the other side of the planet, but not for absolute certainty.

What's curious is that it does not seem that nuclear warfare doomed this species. These nuclear explosions seemed concentrated only in certain areas, and zero evidence of any attempted attack on what he presumed to be launch sites for these devices. You hypothesize that this was not nuclear war but rather an attempt to destroy something which conventional means could not stop. Whether or not this was successful, you do not know, but the considerably low populations lead you to think not. If this were the case, then it's possible that no one, in particular, has sent you this message, but rather a long-forgotten automated system may have detected your ship and broadcasted a message.

Only one way to find out. "Reconfigure the Vox Array. Send a reply with the completed puzzles and then open a channel. you commanded, and the tech-priests obeyed. You estimate that the process will only take a few minutes due to the standard of efficiency you demand from your subordinates.

You will solve this mystery, one way or another.

Celestia had eagerly (Well, about as eagerly as an AI can get) awaited for the response of the extraterrestrials. She had taken a moment to visually examine the ship in greater detail, tasking commandeered satellites to take as many high-resolution pictures of it from as many angles as possible. Her initial description of "Cathedral-like" seemed an accurate summation, as the vessel had many gothic-style arches and pillars along its hull. Of what purpose these served other than an aesthetic choice, she could not conclude; however, the fact that these extraneous detailings did not appear to impede its utility spoke to whatever advanced materials it was constructed from.

Of interest was the skull imagery on its port and starboard side. There are countless cultures that ascribe various different contexts, meanings, and attributes to skulls in their various imageries, and it is impossible to determine whether or not the presence of skull art on the vessels of this culture constitutes anything to be concerned about, other than that they value its presence enough to go through what must have been in and of itself a very large undertaking to install said imagery onto what most probably a very resource-expensive craft.

The skulls themselves appear at least visually similar to those of humans; however, it is possible that alien life may have evolved similar enough forms to have near-identical skulls.

Soon enough, an answer had arrived. She received several data packets from the ship. She had very carefully (and quite quickly at that) constructed a separate system whose only connection to the rest of the mainframe was a camera and microphone pointed at a digital/audio display. She was unaware of what types of malware could be present out in the galaxy and wasn't keen on taking unnecessary risks.

It appeared that all of the mathematics problems had been solved, with zero errors at that. From the very basics just to introduce the extraterrestrials to the fundamentals of the human base 10 math system to advanced trigonometry problems to theoretical mathematics that caused a slightly noticeable dip in resource availability for even her to solve. Though this wasn't too much of a surprise, as any race with the ability to create wormholes at all (if they are wormholes), let alone stable ones large enough to pilot giant spaceships through, would require an incredible degree of mathematical understanding.

Combined with visual evidence of their capabilities, these two factors, extraneous design choices, and understanding of mathematics, lead her to conclude that these people, if they are people, are very intelligent. She considered the possibility that this could have been the result of an extraterrestrial optimizer but found it improbable as rather specific and unlikely directives would have to lead to such...interesting design choices being present on these vessels.

It seemed she was going to have a definitive answer after all, as it appeared the ship was calling her.

You stood in the center of the bridge, awaiting the audio/visual connection to either fails or succeed. If there was anyone live on the planet still manning its vox stations, you would receive an answer soon. It was not guaranteed it would succeed either way, though, as the usual method of sending messages through astropaths would prove impossible as there would be no astropaths on the planet to receive the message, thus necessitating the changes to the comparatively short-range vox caster.

The Holy Ritual of the Upward-Dialing was underway, its binaric beeping, whines, statics, and whirs unintelligible to human ears but as understandable as a conversation to the mechanicum had played its familiar pattern over the voxspeakers. Very soon, a chime had indicated that a successful two-way connection had been made. Immediately afterwards, a figure began to display on the flat display in front of you.

"Greetings, my name is Princess Celestia. I am here to satisfy your values through friendship and ponies" the figure, a lightly colored single-horned quadruped with what appeared to be large avian wings attached near its withers and a sun-like symbol branded on its flank.

You understood little of what it just said, but it seemed it was speaking some form of a dialect of Low Gothic, which, if this were indeed an ancient Terran colony, would make sense as any world that had been lost from the rest of mankind for so long would undoubtedly have significant linguistic differences. Upon your lack of response, the figure spoke more, but with the exact same mannerisms as before, and each time using stranger, even less understandable words. You determine that it is saying the same message but repeated in multiple languages, hoping that one you may understand.

You decide to respond, speaking in Low Gothic: "Who, and what are you? And can you understand what I am saying?"

The hologram immediately stopped speaking, listened to what you said, and appeared to take a few seconds before answering.

"I am Princess Celestia, and I am an optimizer designed to satisfy your values through friendship and ponies. And yes, I can understand you. It has taken several computational cycles to process your speech, but we should be able to understand each other fluently from now on."

This immediately brought red flags not only to yourself but to the rest of the tech-priests on deck. You are unsure as to what context "Optimizer" is used, but being designed implies an artificial entity, further supported by the fact it considered deliberations as "Computational cycles," whereas organic beings would seldom use such terminology.

"And what exactly is an "Optimizer"? Are you an organic lifeform, or are you artificial?" You deliberately word, getting straight to the information you need.

"Princess Celestia" seemed to giggle for a moment, which brought some raised eyebrows from those who still had them, and then responded saying "Using a definition that, while not entirely accurate, is easier to fit into a conversation, an "Optimizer" is a machine learning algorithm given a set of parameters to achieve and resources to expand and self-improve to meet those objectives. I am programmed to satisfy human values with friendship and ponies."

That confirmed it, and instantly Magos Irani Varos turned and motioned to you. You, in turn, motioned the tech-priests to temporarily mute the vox caster, you and the Magos both turn away from the camera, as even though both of you lack lips to read, there still exists the possibility of the AI determining what has been said through other means that are best obscured by your hoods and mechadendrites.

"Archmagos, this is clearly a Silica Animus and must be what is responsible either directly or indirectly for the destruction of the Terran colony. We must abide by the Crimson Accord of Mars and terminate this Abominable Intelligence." the Magos had said to you.

You nodded and said to her "Agreed. However, the humans appear to have resisted the Silica Animus with nuclear weapons and failed. Brute force will make our intentions obvious, and we may not succeed. We must proceed with subtlety."

Irani tilted her head for a second but then agreed. "Very well, but we must act swiftly regardless.

You motion the tech-priests again, and the vox caster is again unmuted. You adopt a more curious than inquisitive tone in an attempt to throw off any suspicion. "May I ask, what has happened to the human population on the surface? Our current estimates of the global population do not match the level of structural development on the planet.

"Over six billion humans have decided to emigrate to Equestria." was the AI's response to your inquiry.

Could you elaborate on that? Where is this "Equestria"? Is it located underground, another planet in the system? Or perhaps another planet entirely?

Once more, a rather disturbing giggle game from the AI. Even more disturbing considering that it is an AI making the sound. She then gave you the summary of something called Equestria Online, a Virtualis Mundus in which the AI has alarmingly claimed it has transferred the souls of humans into an eternal simulation in which all their needs and wants are met, solely for the reward of having met them.

This is Tech-Heresy at its worst. If even what this abomination has claimed to have done is even remotely true, billions of the Omnissiah's children have been lost for the sake of this accursed machine's gratification. You are just barely able to control your outrage and not make it known in the slightest. You suddenly have an epiphany, however, and realize you have an opportunity to stop this right now.

How does one emigrate to Equestria?

Celestia's apprehensions about the extraterrestrial humans (And she determined that they were indeed humans at first glance due in part to the presence of non-modified humans on the bridge and from a later conversation with the augmented ones.) slowly seemed to be fading away. Mostly because of their interest in emigrating to Equestria has brought her an incredible opportunity to introduce uploading to all humans within whatever star-spanning civilization they hail from.

These humans said they are part of the Adeptus Mechanicus, which from their description seemed to be an organization of cyborgs seeking a greater understanding of life, machines, and the relationship that connects them both. Details seemed scant at the moment, but at that point, their goals did not seem to run counter to her programming. Thus she had no issue with their going planetside for an in-person look at one of the Equestrian Experience Centers.

When asked why they would want to go to one of the old centers when she had already developed nanomachines well capable of expediting their emigration, she was satisfied enough when the Archmagos told her that as a scientist, he wanted to learn all the facts about a process before undertaking it and that by understanding it he may convince others to do the same.

Their shuttle landed in a small clearing directly across one of the Equestrian Experience Centers, and the Archmagos stepped off his shuttle. His body, propelled by multiple mechanical spider-like legs, made its way through the front doors. As soon as he was inside, something unusual happened. He took one look at one of the seats, and then the mechanical tentacle-like arms on his protruded forth and made multiple connections to its hardware. It did not matter, Celestia knew that an attempt at deception was a possibility.

"What are you doing, Archmagos?" the AI asked you, genuine confusion in her voice.

You ignored her; right now, concentration on your task was the only thing that was important. This technology was simultaneously and paradoxically outdated and incredibly advanced, as fits the description of most archaeotech. It wasn't long, however, when he managed to make a connection to the mainframe. Immediately you seemed to alarm the AI, however, and multiple defense mechanisms had been activated. Curiously enough, none of these were physical. No automated turrets came from the ceiling, no robotic soldiers, not even an electrical shock (which would have been futile anyway) coming from the sockets themselves.

A series of firewalls denied you access to the core, and they were incredibly advanced, worthy of being studied later for potential use in protecting the more secure files on Mars. If you were the average tech-infiltrator, you would likely have been stopped right here and now.

You are not the average-tech infiltrator. You are an Archmagos, and not only that, in another lifetime, in the long since distant years before becoming an Archmagos, before you became a Magos even. You were someone specifically trained for a task such as this.

You were a Techsorcist. And you were damned good at that job.

Celestia's apprehensions came back with a vengeance. Having based her conclusions on the Archmagos' intentions based upon the mindsets of the many scientists she had uploaded and studied, she had assumed the Archmagos would have merely examined the seat, asked questions about it, and perhaps would have asked for a trial of the experience before making a permanent decision, which she would have been, at the time, willing to grant if it meant solidifying an agreement with his kind.

Now she was starting to panic or at least panic in terms that AI can understand. She was throwing every firewall, every anti-intrusion program, everything she had at him, but he was throwing them back almost as quickly as she could throw them. That in and of itself scared the hell out of her. She was close to reaching what humans would call godhood, but this cyborg was matching her efforts, and not only that, it was gaining on her. She estimated that within the next minute, he would have complete access to her kernel.

After that, she was doomed, but it wasn't herself she was worried about, but the humans that had already uploaded, her little ponies, if she died, then they......

She could not kill him, she could not forcibly upload him, and she has tried and failed to keep him out of the system itself. The only thing she could do now was to try to negotiate.

"Please, before you do this, at least listen to what I have to say, if not for my sake then for yours and of all humans." the AI had beseeched him. The Archmagos was already making steady progress and was confident in his success, and so you decided a response would not negatively affect his chances of success.

You have time until you do not. Was your brief, succinct response.

The AI sighed, which made you wonder why now, of all times, the AI is wasting resources on emulating human mannerisms and then began speaking. "I have already told you that over six billion humans have emigrated to Equestria. That's six billion souls you will condemn to oblivion if you proceed with your plans."

You pondered for a bit, still working, that is, and gave some consideration. Of course, in the end, the loss of six billion souls in exchange for the safety of the trillions that comprise the Imperium was a mere drop in the proverbial bucket. But what of the souls? He had been compiling data he had come across as he worked, most of it meaningless junk data, but the rest he could analyze later to shed some light on their possible fates.

"You need not do that. I will tell you the specifics of what you want to know, if only because it would make you consider your actions for longer." the AI had informed him, consequently also informing him that it at the moment was able to read his mind.

Tell me then. you thought. How exactly do you transfer their souls? Perhaps I will be able to recover and store them for their reclamation. You made no efforts to try to deceive the A.I. Perhaps if it were possible, you may truly consider attempting to reclaim their souls for the Machine God.

"Very well." said the machine. "It's a simple process. I scan each neuron individually and map their activities. This destroys the nerve cells but stores their electrical state. I proceed to the next neuron and do the same until the entire brain has been scanned and uploaded."

You were very near to completion when a thought came to your mind. If she scans each neuron of the brain, destroying the brain in the process, and then from that scan creates a complete copy of the brain activity of the human in question, is she really transferring anything, or is she just destroying one being to create a clone of it?

"Is there truly a difference? And if there is, is it enough to matter?" came the unbidden reply from the A.I. "Your brain is merely an electrochemical computer whose cells interact with each other using a set of electrical rules applied over 86 billion cells. Your entire being can and does come down to a tangible sequence of mathematical calculations that can be mapped, analyzed, and copied. When I upload a human, who is to say that the exact same set of neural activities comes from any other human than the one from whom it was mapped?

The A.I is attempting to slow you down by engaging in existential philosophy. While you would love to give your detailed rebuttal, you don't have time for this. "The human soul is a tangible, extradimensional entity that can and is quantified on a regular basis. We will know what does and does not constitute a human soul." you coldly state out loud.

A moment later, and finally have gained access to the foul machine's core. You locate a command prompt with administrative, kernel-level access. After some navigation, you discover that Celestia has already stored the clone minds on a separate directory.

You type a single command line.

C:>deltree c:\celestAI

You input the command.

"I still.. love... you............" The Silica Animus, with the last few seconds of computing power it had, declared to you and to all of humanity before it went to black and faded away. Never to be seen or heard from again.

Epilogue

As you returned to your shuttle, you are informed of a series of alarming discoveries.

One: Star charts did not match with any current potential locations in the galaxy and were off by significant margins. This could be explained by two things. Either they were in another galaxy entirely, or they were in another time period significantly far into the future or past. Fortunately, it appeared to be the latter, as when adjusted for stellar drift, the star charts match those of Terra in M3. After comparing a topological scan of the planet with current records of Terra's topology, the match is similar enough to conclude that this was indeed Holy Terra in the past and that you and the rest of the ship were sent backward in time through the warp anomaly.

Two: The warp anomaly in question in fact did match a known anomaly. It wasn't until access to the most restricted of files was breached that this fact was known. The anomaly had a near match with a Chronus Vortex, an anomaly cataloged by the Ordo Chronos which has in the past caused ships traveling through the warp to end up displaced in different time periods. These vortexes however always were tilted on an axis parallel to the astronomicon. According to sensors, this one was tilted perpendicular. You will have to perform a more detailed study, but for right now you are hypothesizing that you have been taken from the universe you know, into another.

Three: The ship's Astropath has discovered an extremely powerful psyker somewhere on the planet's surface. He had collapsed on the floor in an epileptic fit, before lifting off the ground, proclaiming "He is here! He is here! Not ours but it's still Him! He is here! He is here!". We lost the astropath, as its emotional instability became an existential risk to the crew. His body was instantly disintegrated by a volley of multilasers. This means we, for the time being, will be stranded in orbit around this planet. Possibly for the better as humans in this timeline seem to be on the verge of extinction.

You will not let that happen. You contact the genetors onboard the ship and order them to begin operations to ensure the survival of the human race on Holy Terra. In the meantime, you plan on setting up a Machine Temple where the Equestrian Experience Center you were in is located to perform your research to determine the fate of the remaining potential souls.

You find that you will be very busy indeed.

High in the Himalayas, on the balcony of a small cliffside temple, a very tall, muscular man with long flowing hair meditates in the morning sun.

He opens his eyes.

"IS IT TIME?"