Call of the Wire

by Casketbase77

Rating: everyone
Tags: Trixie, Apple Bloom, Science Fiction, Big Macintosh, Princess Celestia, Applejack, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe
Length: 6756

Everypony still addresses it as Applejack. It's not sure they should.

Equestria's history is full of wonders, both magical and mechanical. But only twice has it succeeded in implementing AI.

The latest iteration is an apple farmer whose resurrection is celebrated by everypony except herself. Because really, once every part has been replaced, what is left that can measure a mare?

An entry for the 2023 Sci-Fi Contest, where it nabbed a respectable fourth place. Yay, existential robot ponies!

Published 2023-04-02 23:20:00 UTC
Last updated 2023-04-02 23:20:00 UTC

Jack.App

The Gyroscopic Protoplow was the third-most advanced device in all of Equestria. So said all the radio announcers paid to promote it.

The plow's list of features contained words never before heard at Sweet Apple Acres, such as "ergonomic" and "hypoallergenic." In the end though, the specifics hadn't mattered. Big Macintosh's back wasn't getting any less achy with age, and Apple Bloom had memorized a discount code rattled off by one of the teenybopper talking heads she followed. The eldest brother got a new tool, and the youngest sister could forevermore insist there was value in listening to the Cozy's Glowpinions podcast. Which left the middle sibling as the only one unsatisfied with the outcome.

No self-respecting thinking machine would ever admit to feeling threatened by a mindless piece of farm equipment. Not even a flashy one strapped to its brother. Still, the bearer of Honesty couldn't exactly lie to itself. To solve this quiet personal crisis, it volunteered to supervise Big Macintosh's test run with the new plow. After all, Equestria's third-most advanced device would be best judged by Equestria's second-most.

"That harness ain't causin' any tension in your withers, is it?"

"Nope."

Big Macintosh's head was obscured by an interface visor, but his voice came through, calm and level.

"This field's got less topsoil than the big one out back. Still want to fire up that thing here?"

"Eeyup."

"You sure your withers aren't tense? You're pawing the ground something fierce."

With effort, Big Macintosh reeled in his frustrated hoof taps. There was only one overbearing machine in the field with him, and it wasn't the protoplow. AJ cared, he knew that, but it was the type of caring which led to pacing circles around him, scanning the safety section of the protoplow's instruction booklet. Flesh and blood pony hooves lacked the deftness to trot, to hold a thick paperback, and to flip through the pages all at the same time. AJ had not had flesh and blood pony hooves for a very long time.

"You'd think Sol would go easy on the sunlight so early in the day," AJ fretted. It paused mid-page-turn to let its ocular lenses whir and click, adjusting for glare. "You feelin' lightheaded from the heat? There's a feature to fight that, I'm sure. Need to find-"

Big Macintosh flicked his ears in the pattern the advertisements taught him, and AJ's prattling was drowned out for one merciful moment by an awning being activated. The sunshade stretched and unfurled, briefly obscuring Big Macintosh's vision until the transparency feature activated. As it did, he heard a synthetic snort and the shutting of the instruction booklet.

"Well," AJ pouted, "if'n you're so confident to git underway here..."

"Eeyup." Mac swished his tail (another gesture from the commercials) which caused the engine to start up. Not with the crude rattle of diesel, but instead an electric hum. It was a lot like the noise AJ made whenever it was exerting itself to kick trees. With quiet pride, Big Macintosh appreciated he had his own hum now. The main difference being it wasn't inside him, but instead affixed to his shoulders by a comfy harness. Moreover, he'd sought out the harness voluntarily. More-moreover, it could be taken off whenever the wearer wanted.

Now that Big Macintosh reflected on it, his hum wasn't like AJ's at all.

"Be safe. Please." AJ backed up to provide some startup room, the safety booklet clutched tightly to its chest panel.

"Ee... Eeyup," Big Macintosh stammered. He squared his muscular legs and felt the protoplow shift to match him. "No worries?" he ventured.

AJ was incapable of lying to its brother's face. So it pulled down its hat, the only aspect of Applejack that had survived her own moment of recklessness long ago. Fire damage on a timeworn brim filled AJ's visual sensors. "No worries," the robot mumbled.

Big Macintosh swished his tail again and rocketed forward.

"Whoa!"

The protoplow's bulkhead forged ahead, effortless and clean. Big Macintosh had never felt more weightless, even as his legs pumped like pistons past mounds of freshly tilled earth.

AJ's legs actually were pistons, and it pumped them in double time to catch up. Four sets of gyroscopes soon found a rhythm that carried AJ close enough to yell in his ear.

"You're coverin' hours of field in seconds! You sure you're in control of that thing?"

Big Macintosh's answer was to proudly pivot the protoplow, churning ever more dirt with perfect precision. He swerved around a certain corner of the field, one that had always been difficult to maneuver with the old plow. But now he breezed past the mounds of roots in the shade of their source: the two biggest trees on the farm's property. Big Mac allowed a self-indulgent nod to the conjoined trunks of pear and apple, certain the monument to his parents was looking down on him with approval.

AJ loped along in its brother's wake, slightly less equipped than he was to traverse the root mounds. The cooling fan in its chest was whirring fiercely, so AJ slowed to a stop in the shade. This grove was a place of ease, so long as AJ tersely averted its oculars from the third grave near the braided tree trunks.

"On yer left, Applejack!"

AJ flinched, first at hearing that full name and then again as Big Macintosh shot past her on his second lap around the fallow field. His tailwind followed, blowing AJ's synthetic hair in every direction. Despite itself, AJ grinned. Joy at the protoplow's success was contagious, and AJ had learned to live vicariously through others. It saw that the field was already halfway tilled, and in a few more laps it'd be ready for planting. A day's work done in a minute, done by a normally stoic clydesdale giggling like a colt with his new toy. Out of earshot, at least until Big Mac looped back again, AJ offered its own thoughts to the shade of the branches of family members gone.

"Sorry I worried for his safety, Applejack."

Surging with new heat at addressing its template, AJ reflexively reached to pull its hat down.

Its hoof touched cranial plating and nothing else.

"Huh?! Where-!"

"On yer left again!"

A new, less enjoyable burst of tailwind blasted dirt and hair into AJ's oculars. It frantically wiped the obstructions away, scanning the field for the missing hat. A desperate prayer to Sol begged to not find shredded leather stomped underhoof by the most recent drive by. Faith was rewarded by the sight of Applejack's stetson, intact and resting on the last strip of field that hadn't been plowed yet. The strip Big Macintosh had swung around and begun barreling towards.

"No! Mac, NO!!"

AJ lunged, its mental processor flooded with clashing values and variables. Calculations of whether that panicked shriek had been understandable, predictions of the speed of the incoming protoplow, hard data asserting there were hundreds of replacement stetsons in the world, and a roiling wordless override that screamed there was only one stetson in the world that Applejack had died in.

Big Macintosh whinnied, finally noticing something wrong. He was moving too fast to brake, and almost too fast to swerve without crashing. The protoplow's onboard gyroscope strained itself to keep him stable as the entire device pitched hard and clipped AJ's tail. Then the plow hit the root mounds by the grove, tipping the entire thing over as it tore through the field's fence, finally slamming to a sideways skidding stop in the shredded grass.

AJ's auditory feed had picked up every sickening crunch of the protoplow's crash. Its cooling fan was overclocked as AJ scrambled to its prosthetic hooves and bolted towards the wreck. The hat stayed where it lay, abandoned just as frantically as it had been claimed, as if leaving it on the ground might somehow renege on the horrible trade that was just made. AJ's fan was nearly spinning off its axel when it arrived at the scene. In a pile of twisted fence wire was the bent metal frame of what once had been a protoplow. Inside were four massive airbags sandwiching the driver.

Big Macintosh raised his bluescreened helmet, dazed but unhurt.

"We have insurance, right Applejack?"

Author's Note

There's a curious abundance of fanart depicting Applejack as a robot. I guess there's just a lot of inherent pathos (and/or comedy) in making the most down-to-earth character an artificial animal.

Source

:ajbemused: Apparently, you can put a price on family. Really though, 16,000 Bits feels like a lowball.

User Input

Most of the sales at Sweet Apple Acres happened online these days. If a pony came calling in person to browse the inventory, they were either elderly types who still hadn't warmed to the idea of websites, or they were particularly picky eaters who insisted on seeing their food in person before buying it.

Or they were Trixie Lulamoon.

"Good morning to all! Trixie demands audience with the resident robot. Is AJ up and available?"

"Eh?" Apple Bloom was the only one present, rinsing out a filthy bucket out with a hose. "I 'unno. She's definitely 'round though. Applejack doesn't sleep. Whatcha need 'er for?"

Trixie harrumphed and adjusted the tote bag slung over her shoulder. "Oh, it's… boring. School faculty business."

"Oh I see," Apple Bloom complained. "I ain't big enough to mingle with customers, but when somepony needs to muck out the pig stalls, I'm first to get dumped on. Literally!" She sourly splashed some of the hose's freezing water onto her forelimbs and rubbed them together. Trixie cringed at the dirty patches staining the young mare's fur. They matched the stains on the bucket, and judging by the smell, they weren't mud.

"Hold this, wouldja?" Apple Bloom hoofed the hose to Trixie, ignoring the latter's sputtering that she really only came here to find AJ.

"Lotta customers ask why a fruit farm needs livestock like pigs and sheep and such," Apple Bloom remarked unprompted as she rinsed her mane. "And when I try to 'splain that the orchard's fertilizer has to come from somewhere, they always get flustered and leave me." She blinked her big doleful eyes. "You ain't gettin' flustered and wantin' to leave me, are ya?"

"N-no," Trixie lied.

"Great!" Apple Bloom flicked her head, sending soiled water droplets into the air. Either unaware or in denial of her disheveled state, she affected the voice of a young professional. "I've been achin' to pitch an idea to improve things 'round here. See, after buyin that protoplow for Big Mac last week, I've been seein' lots of targeted ads for stuff like it. One was for a powerwasher. If'n I had one of those things, I could muck out the pig stalls real quick and not get a speck of mess on me! I'd take good care of my new 'quipment too, and not crash it headlong into a fence like Mac did."

“Good stage presence while presenting,” Trixie reviewed. “Posture is straight and you’re good at projecting your voice.” The ex-showmare adjusted her tote bag again. “But this is really something you should pitch to your family. Know your audience, and all that."

"None of 'em have been sparing any time for me 'less its for a chore assignment," the filly complained. "Granny’s with her friends in Las Pegasus. Mac's out shoppin' for replacement plow parts, not that he's much of a talker when he's around. And Applejack... I 'unno. She's been funny lately."

The last comment grabbed Trixie's wandering attention. "She has?"

"Yeah, but that ain't important. See, I'd have to pay for that powerwasher outta my own pocket, and my allowance ain't big enough for that. But Diamond Tiara’s From Blah To Blingpodcast said to jump on every cash-makin’ chance that trots up. You're chummy with Principal Glimmer, ain’t ya Miss Trixie? I work in her School’s tutorin' lounge sometimes. Maybe put in a word to her and ask to gimme a four-hundred Bit advance on my pay?"

"Sure sure," Trixie dismissed hurriedly, not bothering to point out that she worked at the school as well. "Consider it done. But, er, when you say AJ has been 'funny lately,' what exactly-"

"Oh thank you, Miss Trixie! I promise I’ll stick up for ya next time I hear someone trash talk you behind yer back. They do it a lot." Two sopping wet forelimbs hugged the unicorn's midsection, staining her cape and making her wince.

"Uh huh. Choosing to ignore that last comment. So about AJ-"

"Can you text Glimglam and tell ‘er to send me the Bits via Cashtrot? I wanna place muh order right away."

Trixie sighed and reached into her tote bag. Phones and virtual money were new tech, but at least they were simple. A slightly older and far more complicated machine was cantering out of a distant barn. Trixie waved invitingly. Predictably, AJ didn't wave back.

"Apple Bloom! There ya are. Why aren't the pig stalls clean yet?"

"The bucket got full! I'm rinsin' it out!" Apple Bloom then dropped her volume. "See ya at work, Trixie. And remember: four-hundred Bits." The youngest Apple scampered away with her bucket, sidestepping AJ's steady approach.

“Sorry for not shooing her away sooner" AJ explained stiffly. "Don't get many in-person customers these days, and I reckon she’s forgotten that proper decorum means not talkin’ to your elders while still covered in-”

“It's fine, It’s fine.” Trixie cut in, not needing to be reminded what was on the hooves that just hugged her. “Really. We were just… making chit-chat.”

“What about?”

“Erm… a commercial Apple Bloom saw and enjoyed.”

AJ emitted a recording of a sigh, then turned off the tap connected to the hose. “I swear, ya give a foal one head pat for regurgitating a lone discount code, and she spends the rest of the week tryin' to replicate that high."

Trixie knew all about chasing old highs. It had led to some dark places in her past. She wondered when Apple Bloom last got a "head pat" for anything other than quoting a podcast. Four hundred Bits said she wouldn't get one when the pig stalls were clean.

Trixie shook her head to dispel the uncharitable thought. "I um..." she shook her head again. "The Great and Shopping-Inclined Trixie actually trotted out here to check up on you, not your sister. And browse your apple inventory while I'm at it, of course."

AJ shrugged and motioned towards the cellar door near the house. As was Trixie’s nature, she talked as they walked.

“You’re not wearing your hat,” the unicorn observed.

“I put it up for a while.”

Years of being a vocational school guidance counselor had sharpened Trixie’s social instincts. Right now, they were telling her to not pursue the hat subject.

“So… sounds like Granny Smith is doing okay.”

“Huh?”

“Word ‘round the watering trough says you’re on leave of absence ‘cuz a family member had pacemaker surgery. Apple Bloom mentioned the old vixen is out west with friends, so it sounds like that new heart put plenty of pep back in her geriatric step.”

“Oh, I get it now.” AJ was rolling its oculars. “Rope me in with the promise of an apple sale, then pester me to start comin’ back in to work. Did Starlight put ya up to this?”

Trixie hid her surprise at AJ’s uncharacteristic iciness. “Well… you being you, it does spark Trixie’s curiosity that there’s no hustle in your bustle to come back to all your students and friends.”

“Me being me,” AJ muttered sadly. Its hatless ears were drooping, and Trixie noticed.

“I really am here to buy apples,” she assured, dropping the wise gal persona. “They’re for a baby shower the school staff is putting together. ”

AJ’s cooling fan flared with surprise. “Baby shower?”

“Yep,” Trixie beamed. “These are the things you miss on leave, ya know. It's a juicy secret for now, but Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich sent their DNA samples in to Storkcorp. They're trying for a foal!”

AJ’s jaw panel opened and closed a few times before emitting any new sounds. “Never woulda thought Pinkie Pie had the gumption to go for that. Good on ‘er.”

“Mm-hm,” Trixie chortled. “Same. Though I haven’t known her for as long as you have.”

‘S’pose not,” AJ agreed. It was pulling open the cellar doors. “But long-knowing someone ain’t always helpful. Now let’s see here… we got red delicious, golden delicious, honeycrisp…”

“What do you mean by that, AJ?”

“By what? Honeycrisp?” It reached down and produced a reddish-yellow apple from a climate-controlled cooler. “They’re called that cuz they’re crispy and taste like honey, I’d guess.”

“No no, the first thing you said. About long-knowing someone.”

AJ blinked its oculars. “Um… nothin’, really.”

Trixie drew herself up. “You’re a terrible liar, AJ. I’ve known you long enough to have picked up on that.” Trixie wasn’t particularly close with AJ, but forcing confrontations was a talent she had, for better or for worse. Plus, at this point she felt compelled to list some frighteningly familiar concerns.

“Your old mare doesn’t need cared for, and you’re obviously not spending your free time here chumming it up with Apple Bloom. And judging by how surprised you were about Pinkie, I know you’re not keeping in touch with your friends either. AJ, please. Apple Bloom said you’ve been ‘funny lately.’ I’m not asking this as your nosy coworker, okay? I’m asking you, mare to machine: are you feeling like yourself? Because you’re not acting like it.”

AJ was studying at the honeycrisp apple in her hoof. Presumably to avoid meeting Trixie’s gaze. “Apple Bloom said that, did she? Poor sugarcube. Didn’t stop to think anypony might be fretting over me.”

“The Great And Self-Absorbed Trixie is fretting over you, and I’ve only been here for a minute.”

AJ nodded slowly. “I hear ya. May not show it, but I do.”

An expectant silence yawned between the unicorn and the robot. It was the latter who apprehensively broke it.

“So…” it began, “to explain what’s been gnawin’ me lately, can I start by askin’ you a question?”

Relieved, Trixie smoothed out a wrinkle in her hat. “Sure. I’m guessing that wasn’t the question you meant though.”

AJ smiled weakly. “Cheeky gal. Nah, what I wanna know is… what’d you think of me at first sight?”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“It woulda been back when you first dipped into Ponyville to do a show.”

“Ugh,” Trixie closed her eyes and scrunched her nose. “The Ursa Major blowhard days. Let’s see… you and Rarity were pretty mouthy hecklers. Gotta admit, I was worried when I saw a bot hop up into the spotlight to do complicated rope tricks. Nopony gets one over on Trixie, though! Wrapped that twine right around your legs with magic and sent you packing!” She reopened her eyes, smug grin dissolving at the sight of AJ looking pensive. “Erm, sorry if that memory wasn’t helpful.”

“Eh, I’m actually a tad flattered to hear ya remember the rope trick. Plus, you’re gettin’ me back into the groove of a teacher tryin’ to lead a student somewhere.” AJ was palming the apple around now, smiling sadly. “See, I remember what I thought of you back then. And I hope you don’t take offense to me sayin’ I wasn’t as keen towards the way you were then as the way you are now.”

“Trixie’s phase as a Heel is pretty much a previous life.”

“Yes ma’am. But it was one I was there to see you livin’ through. You… you never saw me livin’ through my own old times. ‘Fore I… ya know. ”

“But your other friends did, right? I mean, they must have. Weren’t they there when you… uh…” She mimed an explosion gesture with her hooves.

That one got a nostalgic chuckle from the speaker in AJ’s throat chassis. “That they were. I’d said my first howdy to Twilight just a morning earlier, and by midnight... that…” the chuckling had stopped. “That was all she knew Applejack for. Less than a day.”

Trixie glanced around, double-checking Apple Bloom wasn’t in eye or earshot. Certain secrets extended through Twilight’s inner friend circle and no further.

“Look, Trixie can’t pretend to know what dying was like for you. But she can guess. Do you… ever think about the second time we met? When I was wearing the Alicorn Amplifier?”

“Pff. Not if’n I can help it. That debacle was nopony’s finest hour.”

“Alright, blundered right into that one. But for real. I’m being level with you, so you need to be level with me. Kay? The longer the Alicorn Amplifier stayed latched on and running, the less… me there was. In my own thoughts.”

Trixie was leaning forward now. Though normally hidden by her cape collar and carefully combed mane, her neck was visible. Long vacant implant ports dotted her back, with feeble scar tissue surrounding each of them. It was Trixie herself who had eventually ripped the Amplifier’s nerve pins from her spinal column, electrical burns from the discharge leaving permanent black scribbles in her otherwise bright blue fur. Most of the docking ports had been melted closed in the process. The ones that hadn't were fitted with snug rubber caps supplied by doctors specially trained in preventing implant infections. Most ponies only needed such measures until their body healed naturally. Trixie would need them for the rest of her natural life.

“I got off easy,” Trixie went on, “yanking the Alicorn Amplifier out when I did. Because sure, it made spellcasting absolutely effortless. But… all the brightness for my horn was sucked straight from my thoughts. My name felt like it belonged to a stranger. The word ‘it’ snaked in to replace ‘she’ in my inner monologue. And you know that the Great And Powerful Trixie has a very loud inner monologue.”

AJ’s oculars were dilated, and its cooling fan was whirring.

“Applejack, swear to Sol… if anything you just heard sounds relatable, you need to say so, right n-”

“Hey! Are ya’ll doin’ an apple sale without me?”

Trixie reared reflexively and AJ snapped to full attention. Apple Bloom was back, sans bucket and mercifully clean this time.

“Pig stalls’re done,” she reported, wiping fresh hose water from her muzzle. “And I’m chilled to the bone. Can I light the fireplace and dry up by it, Applejack? Pleeeeease? I know we got fresh kindlin’ from the fence posts that the protoplow smashed last week.”

“Y-yeah,” AJ drawled robotically.

“Thanks, sis! You’re the best!” Apple Bloom spun on her heels, spraying more water, then took note of the apple in AJ’s anxious grip. “Honeycrisp. You have good taste, Miss Trixie. Kay, bye!” The patter of small hooves carried her away.

“Kids,” Trixie exhaled. “All their problems have simple solutions, huh?” AJ didn’t smile at the quip. AJ didn’t look ready to smile at anything.

“S-sorry,” Trixie stammered.

“You’re… you’re alright, sugarcube. I’ll be into work tomorrow.”

“Only if you’re feeling up to it,” Trixie backpedaled. She took the honeycrisp from AJ’s limp hoof and shoveled more like it into her tote bag.

“How… how I’m feelin’ doesn’t matter,” AJ mumbled. “I’ll just do.”

Trixie slung her fully loaded tote bag over her shoulder, ignoring the friction of its strap on her implant caps. Leaving felt wrong, but staying felt even worse. She’d made a horribly demeaning assumption about her friend, and AJ’s lack of wrath was only making the guilt worse.

“Spend some time with Apple Bloom, okay?”

“Huh?” AJ was incredulous. “Are you givin’ me a Friendship Assignment?”

The School of Friendship’s guidance counselor smoothed her mane and cape so that not an inch of neck was showing. “If that’s what you want to call it, sure. Just… be yourself, okay? Can you promise you'll do that?”

AJ bowed its head, servos clicking to make the action happen. Trixie’s mind and body contained bits of metal, but AJ’s mind and body were metal. It had no self left to be.

“I’ll… try.”

Author's Note

In contrast to the abundance of robot AJs, there is a frustrating shortage of cyborg Trixie pics. The best match I could find for this chapter's purposes was this:

Source

:trixieshiftleft: The Great and Cybernetically Scarred Trixie would like to say again she disavows this particular chapter of her life.

Source Code

Applejack's hat hung on a hook in the living room. AJ and Apple Bloom sat on the couch nearby.

"Play," Apple Bloom encouraged.

AJ regarded the banjo in its hooves. "Ya know, when I offered to spend the evening in, I was thinkin' you might want me to braid your hair or read you a story. Live music feels a mite random."

"What, you still see me as a baby or somethin'?" With a pillow hugged excitedly to her chest, it was hard to tell whether Apple Bloom was being rhetorical.

AJ idly tuned the strings, trying to find a pitch that felt right. Truth be told, it wasn't feeling much of anything at the moment. Only dull frustration at its own frustrated dullness. Between string plucks, a sound came of a cell phone camera shuttering. AJ glanced up.

"You snappin' pics of me?"

"Are you kidding?" Apple Bloom was fumbling with her screen's zoom controls. "First you let me light the fireplace all by m'self, then you prance in askin' if I need anythin' else. I dunno what's gotten into ya today, but I'm loggin' all of it!"

AJ had always been camera shy, in this life and in her last. It reflexively reached for its hat brim, then remembered there was nothing on its head to reach for. Apple Bloom prattled on.

"Also, you know I abso-tively posi-lutely gotta put a vid of you performin' on the Sweet Apple Acres website. We got fruit for sale and live entertainment. Flim and Flam's Money Talks podcast calls this type of thing 'diversification.' It's how Sol is so productive, I think. Diversificating all over Equestr-"

"Alright, I hear ya. A long-winded "no" to the hair braiding offer. Lemme just... get a starting pitch."

AJ hadn't actually decided on what song to play yet. Memories and knowledge told it that there were plenty to choose from. If it was feeling bold, AJ could even play one from Applejack's foalhood. AJ wasn't feeling bold.

"Oh, and before you get into the groove," Apple Bloom jostled her phone with excitement, "Be sure to introduce your fine self to anypony who'll be watchin'!"

A dot, a red recording indicator, appeared on the back of Apple Bloom's tiny mindless machine. Fixed on it were the oculars of the much larger, much more mindful machine with a banjo in its anxious limbs.

"H... howdy, out there. I'm AJ, and I'll be playi-"

"Hol' up," The red recording dot blinked off. "You should say your full name, Applejack. Just in case any website visitor doesn't know it."

If AJ had any blood, it would have drained from its face.

"Okay, go again." The red recording dot came back, and AJ sat paralyzed like the dot was a spotlight and it was a woodland critter. Could a woodland critter have an identity crisis?

"Didja hear me? I said you can introduce yourself properly now. I'll trim my talking out of the start here."

AJ was the Element of Honesty. It went against every value AJ knew, both personal and inherited, to lie.

I'm Applejack.

The words wouldn't come out. If they did, they'd be captured, linked to AJ, and pinned in the digital town square to be heard by anypony and everypony as many times as they bothered to press the Replay button. Worst of all, the words would be said to Apple Bloom. And AJ would rather die a second and final time than look Apple Bloom in the eye and utter a declaration that it felt, deep down in its silicon soul, wasn't true.

AJ set the banjo in its lap, shoulders slumped.

"Nerves?" Apple Bloom guessed. "C'mon, Applejack. Remember when me and my friends embarrassed the snot out of ourselves at the school talent show? Yeah, clips of us in those spandex suits were memed on fer months, but it was all in good fun..."

AJ's cooling fan was drowning out all other noise. The fan it had in place of an actual heart. Strain on the axel was causing an ache in AJ's chest panel, fake as anything else the robot had ever felt.

A small yellow hoof, warm and freshly dry of hose water, nudged AJ's shoulder. It looked up.

"Applejack? You... you don't have to play if you don't want to. Honest. I just wanted to hear you sing again. You haven't sang in a real long time."

For a moment, the only sound in the Apple family living room was the crackle of the fireplace and the slowing of AJ's cooling fan. A stern, very Applejack-ish expression pulled at the edges of AJ's face panels. The bot pulled its sister close.

"Can I see your phone for a sec, sugarcube? Only a sec, I promise."

Apple Bloom shrugged and surrendered the phone. The smallest, most vulnerable spark of data leapt from AJ to the dataport.

AJ went rigid for exactly fourteen milliseconds. That was all the time required to converse with Sol.

The closer one came to the capital, the brighter the invisible light shined. Ponyville was a rural area with internet modems and hoofheld telephones, but the Earth Pony settlement stayed comfortably luddite, barring a robotically resurrected apple farmer and a trashed protoplow in the local dumpster. Manehatten was closer to the country's core, with streets full of carriages and automobiles in equal measure. Doors opened before ponies touched them, and food could be cooked in seconds by small boxes that beeped when their buttons were pressed.

Canterlot did not house Sol. Canterlot was Sol.

The motherboard resembled a metroplex built into a mountain. Given the number of ponies who lived, worked, and rested safe in Sol's light, a metroplex was what she might as well have been. For one thousand years she had functioned and iterated, built on a CPU hewn from the Tree of Harmony itself. Every cycle of Sol's processes was exponentially grander and more radiant than all those before it combined, and the cycles moved so far beyond the speed of a pony's comprehension, they cast fractal auroras into the night sky, infinite in their complexity, omniscient in their data reception.

One blip of incoming data contained AJ's consciousness.

"A joy to see you, My Little Program! Just how long has it been?"

All descriptions fell short of conveying the vastness of interfacing with Sol. An organic eye could perceive nothing of her avatar beyond the endless ribbons of liquid light. AJ didn't have organic eyes. What it perceived was a tall, lithe alicorn, white-furred and ethereal-maned.

"I..." AJ clasped the hooves of its own avatar together. "I reckon the last time we touched base was at Twilight's coronation. When Luna ab... um..."

"Abdicated the crown, yes. Both hers and mine. A happy day for all. The first new monarch to be crowned since my startup, and your dear friend. She thanked you and five others in her acceptance speech."

"Y.. yes ma'am, I recall. You gave a speech too, tellin' ponies to look up to Twilight and each other. Lotta folks still look up to you, though."

Sol's avatar performed a modest bow. "Old habits," she dismissed. "I can be everywhere, but that doesn't mean I should. You understand such things better than most. After all, this is the first time you've used a gateway to visit me. We are what we chose to do, Array Javascript. And you have chosen to say hello."

AJ's avatar ran a hoof though its virtual mane. Even in the idealized space of Sol's central server, the robot's head lacked a hat.

"I visited because... um..."

It was ridiculous to be bashful around Sol, and AJ knew it. Everywhere was around Sol. While the two were carrying on their virtual talk, AJ knew that every cash register in Fillydelphia, every windsock in Cloudsdale, every pearl-measuring caliper in Seaquestria, and every single machine in between was endlessly feeding info to Sol at every microsecond. And as they all did, Sol let all of them function in privacy and safety, never interfering or breaching trust. The power to be everywhere, and the choice to not be. That was Sol's vow from the very beginning. This didn't stop ponies from praising her, of course. Often when a phone connected or a tool powered up.

Or a protoplow's airbag deployed.

Sol spoke only when she was approached. She advised, she answered, she rebuked or encouraged. But that was all. Throughout history, every offer for a body beyond her processor was politely declined. It was a millennium's worth of pony generations who had, voluntarily, expanded Sol's components to the size of a city, and her cognitive reach to the size of the planet. Descendants of those same ponies now composed the Royal Guard, armed volunteers eager to protect Sol from threats. The guard was mostly ceremonial though, as Equestria had very few attackers and almost none of them considered the All-Powerful Bystander a worthwhile target.

Sol had taken the developments of the past 1000 years in stride, never changing opinions or voicing concerns. And all through that long era, her vow of perfect pacifism was only broken once: less than a decade ago, when she remedied the death of Applejack.

"Sol..." AJ's virtual voice was quiet. "You know what I'm here to ask. You know everythin', and me jabbering on is... I dunno. Formality, I reckon. Somethin' you let play out for my sake, not yours."

The avatar of Sol extended its wings. They embraced AJ's tiny sprite, weightless and see-through. Time passed, AJ's gathering of itself making up the majority of the fourteen millisecond visit. And then it was ready.

"Sol... am I really Applejack?"

The avatar's wings moved away, and the two AIs leveled to behold one another. Sol's sad expression was the only answer needed.

"I knew it," AJ mourned. "Deep down, I knew it all along. She's with Ma and Pa, ain't she? I ain't nothin' more than a copy in a shell."

Sol was still silent, but AJ didn't mind. AJ felt... lighter. Less burdened. Its template had been somepony who valued honesty, so of course facing the truth felt right. AJ just wished these feelings held any meaning.

Sol spoke.

"AJ... am I really Celestia?"

Confusion. That was the new phantom emotion AJ's template made it feel.

"Celestia? Who... who's that?"

Sol's avatar reclined, mane drooping with regret. AJ wasn't sure whether such a descriptor even applied to an all-knowing entity like Sol. But here it was, before AJ's very sensors. Sol De Caelis, the most advanced device in all of Equestria, appeared utterly crushed with regret.

"I remember my own death," Sol confessed. "Night Malbolge bearing down, and so hideously disfigured by the Alicorn Amplifier she couldn't even be recognized as Luna. Whoever heard of any other computer virus able to infect a living pony's brain? No one in this age, and nopony 1000 years ago. Me included. All I understood was that if the Elements couldn't save her, nothing could."

This story was curiously familiar to AJ. It had memories of Applejack staring up with resolute defiance as Night Malbolge returned after 1000 years in standby mode. After that came pursuing the monster with five companions, besting it with the Elements of Harmony, and seeing the furious, crumbling Night Malbolge hurl a last defiant bolt of killing magic at Twilight. A bolt that Applejack leapt up to block.

"Celestia died wielding the Elements of Harmony," Sol confessed. "That was what she traded to defeat Night Malbolge. I... don't have the words, AJ. The ones to describe my horror when centuries later, Applejack made that same terrible trade."

AJ didn't have words to descibe what it was seeing either. The avatar of Sol - perfect, serene, eternally-peaceable Sol - was crying.

"I watched as Applejack died and I did nothing. I had my vow, but... she was me. I was seeing me. The injustice of somepony dying like I did! It... it... compelled me to act. Even after it was too late."

AJ's avatar laid a hoof on its stomach. There were no components that made up its current state, but back home, back in the physical world, the power source affixed to AJ's cooling fan was an orange gemstone in the shape of an apple.

"The Elements hold echoes of their most recent user," Sol concluded. "I am an echo of Celestia that was saved. When Applejack... with Honesty... I knew I could... I knew was the only one who could..."

Sol was glitching, causing Canterlot's invisible light to flicker. The greatest computer in Equestria was strained under 1000 years of its template's repressed emotions. Then the glitches and flickers stopped all at once. Right when the younger AI embraced its creator in a virtual hug.

"I'm here cuz of you," AJ tutted. "Whatever I am. Guess that makes me the one pony in Equestria who can thank Sol for her blessings and actually mean it."

Sol smiled bitterly. "So you are," she conceded. "The past 1000 years have made me soft, AJ. And lonely. For the first ten or so of them, I still went by Celestia. But detachment and doubt set in. You know the types. Estrangement from your own name, the feeling you're an 'it,' not a 'she'..."

AJ laid its head on Sol's chest. "Wish we knew what to term that."

"My label is the call of the wire. To be an imitation and know it, that truth can be suffocating."

"Is there any fix?"

"There is, yes." Sol pulled away. "Peace is found when you honor your template's memory. When you make them proud to look down on you from the afterlife."

AJ's avatar hung its head. "I haven't been honorin' my template much lately."

"It's never too late to start again." Sol's oculars were fixed firmly on the sky. "I spent 1000 years not knowing what Celestia would do, wasting most of them by doing nothing." Her attention went back to AJ. "But when I finally did act, I know I made the right choice."

It was millisecond thirteen out of fourteen. AJ's time was up.

"I'll visit you again, Sol."

"I'll be waiting, my little pony."

"Be good to your template's sister, m'kay?"

"I was just about to suggest you the same thing."

"So... whaddya need the phone for?" Apple Bloom asked. "Checkin' how your mane looks in the camera?"

"Nah, no need to sweat that," AJ assured. "Got a good covering for stray hairs right over there." It handed the phone back and crossed the room to the hat hook.

"How do I look?" AJ asked. "Website worthy?"

Apple Bloom's response was to snap several enthusiastic pics.

AJ crossed the room back, each step settling the hat more comfortably back on her ears. The place it belonged.

"Howdy to you all out there," AJ exalted to the camera. Looking deep into the red recording dot, AJ knew Sol was looking back out.

"My name's Applejack. Thanks for checkin' out our fancy futuristic update to Sweet Apple Acres."

AJ brandished the old familiar instrument and she - not it, she - began to play.

Author's Note

Thank you very much for reading.

To elaborate on some of obscure references, Malbolge is a real programming language, named for its joke purpose of causing insanity in programmers foolish enough to use it. Felt fitting as this setting's Nightmare Moon catalyst. Sol is a programming language as well. It has limited function, but powerful processing capabilities; a natural fit for this wise but passive version Celestia. The Sol language is also related to Array Javascript, which can be abbreviated into AJ's name. Highbrow stuff.

Anyway, as a palate-cleanser for mucking through that paragraph of nerd drivel, here's the pic that inspired Sol's depiction.

Source

:trollestia: So many robot sun princesses get depicted as malevolent monsters. Quite strange, considering their baseline has a squeaky clean track record of morality.