The Part Where Plot Happens
Princess Luna knew what the package was the moment the servant brought it to her quarters. The box was long, but its rectangular cross section was only three and a half inches wide, exactly the size to snugly fit all the diskettes holding what will soon be her computer's operating system.
Already, there was a problem, the box was almost fifteen inches in length, despite the fact that each little disk was a fraction of an inch thick. She estimated over a hundred and ten disks were inside. Sighing, she pulled the first diskette out with her magic, FI Disk 01. She brought it to her computer.
Princess Luna's computer was a technological masterpiece, a "pizza box" form factor case holding its Socket 7 motherboard. Locked onto the board lay the legendary, ninety megahertz Pentium processor, and sixty four entire megabytes of memory. Connecting the glorious machine to her full SVGA monitor was the Phoenix, or as some (rather, most) dared call it, the Trio64V+. Luna carefully lifted the monitor, and the top of the case below, making sure once again that she had indeed replaced the hard disk storage with her new, two gigabyte model.
Indeed she had, and once she had reset the case, she floated the first diskette into the respective drive on the front of her machine, switching the power toggle as she readied herself at the keyboard. She smiled as a respectable beep called out from the case, but soon found a much less jovial expression as a disheartening message burned from the monitor to her eyes.
"Non-Bootable XDF Data Disk," it read. "Insert system disk and press any key."
She looked at the box of diskettes, and swiftly spread them out with her magic. Labeled separately from the FI disks, were the installation disks. She floated the Installation Disk 01 towards her, but stopped, and looked through the disks again. There was also an Installation Disk 00, and she guessed that would be the actual first disk.
She ejected the first FI disk, and replaced it with the installation disk. She pushed in the enter button, for some reason she chose to do so with her hoof rather than her magic, and for a second, all was still.
The monitor shone blue, the great, striped "EBM" of Equestria Business Machines taking top center. Below it, a confirmation that the OS/2 Warp version 4 installation had begun. Now it asked for the diskette to be removed from Drive A, and for Diskette 1 to be added.
Princess Luna did so, and the screen went black, but in a moment, she was greeted with a glorious picture. Previously, her screen had shown blue, but this was not just blue, there were shades and tints, surely half a dozen blues, and in front of all the blue, a curving text, casting a shadow over the blues, reminding her that she was indeed installing OS/2 WARP.
The screen cut to one shade of blue again, as it asked for the insertion of Diskette 2. It cut to black, with a grey line of text promising it was loading, then a new screen appeared, asking if she would want the easy or advanced installation.
Princess Luna snorted, the princess of the moon would not be bested by a puny machine, so she tapped the A key, and the screen advanced to "Preparing the Hard Disk." It wanted her again to choose, this time whether to accept a predefined installation, or specify her own partition. She chose the former, and the screen glowed grey, a green box announcing that she now had to restart from the first install disk.
Begrudgingly, Luna obliged, the computer beeping as it reset. It took at least a minute, which she was fairly certain was longer than the last time, until finally a familiar blue screen asked for the next install disk. The pretty image appeared again, yet somehow she felt less comfort in it the second time through. When she finally reached Disk 2 again, she frowned as it once more asked if she wanted to begin the easy or advanced installation.
'Does it not believe one of the Princesses of Equestria can handle simple technology?' wondered Luna, as she once again began the advanced installation. This time, though it still asked about disks, the computer now asked if she wanted to install OS/2 to the C Disk, which she agreed to. Finally, she was on Diskette 3. It worked silently, save for the groan of the diskette, then it asked what file system she wanted to use. Obviously, the High Performance File System would be the better choice.
Suddenly, something new happened, the computer was now copying files, and it even had a progress bar. Progress! She was making progress! As soon as it asked for the next diskette, she was ready. The top half of the screen displayed useful promises of Warp 4's features, and when she put in the fifth diskette, it even promised that she could dictate to the computer. She began to imagine writing her notes about the dreams she ventures to, just by speaking it allowed. A beep took her from her daydreams, as she had to put in Diskette 6. Now the computer talked of a "WarpCenter," where she could easily access applications, but she wouldn't need that if she can already just ask the computer to open- BEEP. The computer surprised Luna again, ready for the next diskette. Well, she mustn't keep it waiting.
The next screen spoke of pointers and cursors, and Luna realized there was something she had forgotten. Her new computer mouse was still in its box! She rushed to her closet, where somewhere inside was the mouse. The computer's beeper echoed throughout her chambers, and she could feel the impatience of the computer in the air (despite the fact that, in reality, the computer was quite patient, and its patience really did not intend to run out in any foreseeable time span). Finally, she had secured the mouse, and rushed back, tearing apart the box in her telekinetic field. As she quickly replaced the diskette, she realized that for the moment, the computer didn't even care for her mouse. Once she swapped to the next diskette, she realized she didn't know how to wait out the next, and decided to make a visit to the dream world.
Author's Note
I am almost certain the computer parts mentioned were never top of the line, but in my humble opinion, that just makes it funnier.
Nightmares and Disk Changes
"Halictin! There is no escape from the hive!" A young changeling was running through a dark, warping wasteland as a great and terrible voice rang through his entire body. Behind him, the charred hive he once called home twisted and bent, crawling towards him like a sinister slinky. Suddenly, he tripped on a burrow in the ground that he was sure was not there a second ago. He screamed, the hive approaching. He was sure it was right above him, and his scream melted into a sob as the shadow around him grew.
Suddenly, it stopped, the hive exploding into light as a large pony appeared in the air between him and the former hive. It was no ordinary pony, it was the Princess of the Moon. He looked up at the Princess, even meeting her gaze, then suddenly, a great "BEEP" emanated from her, and she turned away, disappearing. For a moment, Halicitin lay still, uncertain of what happened. Just as he came to the realization that this was a dream, the floor beneath him dissolved, and he awoke with a shout.
Princess Celestia knew instantly that her sister had invaded her dream, and she turned towards Luna, eyeing her fellow princess with uncertainty.
"Why do you come here, to my dreams, sister?" asked Celestia. "I cannot recall the last time you've done this."
"Well, sister," admitted Luna, "I have a long night ahead-"
"BEEP!" sounded Luna's computer, somehow echoing into the dream world. Luna disappeared for a few seconds, then returned as if nothing had happened.
"Oh," realized Celestia, "So that must be what your package was. Why not just stick with PC-DOS?"
"They're coming out with a new version of Greifenstein 3D," argued Luna, "Just for OS/2!"
"BEEP!" Luna looked surprised, noting,
"That was fast. I think it's almost done. I wonder why I've used not a quarter of the disks."
Luna returned to the physical world again, seeing her computer ask what hardware she had. She noticed the background was patterned now, and the computer mouse now reacted with a digital pointer that made it quite easy to proceed. After two screens of hardware selection, the computer now asked Luna for what software she would want. She noticed, and nearly squeed in joy at seeing the "WIN-OS2" feature; Luna could still play Greifenstein 3D even before the updated release came out!
She accepted nearly every feature available, it was not like two whole gigabytes of storage were gonna go anywhere.
The computer asked for the next disk, she frowned.
Luna returned to Celestia's dream, and the latter shook her head, asking, "So it wasn't as done as you presumed, was it?"
It was not. Luna did not need to state so for her to know.
"Are you sure there are no other ponies whose dreams you need to visit?" asked Celestia.
"I only saw one," said Luna, "I took care of it."
"And in what way did you do that?" pressed Celestia.
"Well, this glitterbug- I mean changeling was having a nightmare about the old Changeling Hive, the whole hive was after him, so I just blocked it from getting to him, then I left."
"And did you… get to the root issue?"
"Well, it was rather abstract, I would have to see through it for a couple of nights before I could really get a proper-"
"BLIP!" interrupted Luna's computer again.
"That was shorter than last time," noted Celestia, but Luna was already gone.
This time, she was not back for almost a minute, but just as Celestia prepared to go back to playing the story of her dream, Luna returned, announcing, "Yep! Not a single nightmare left. You should be happy that it is so. You once had to fill my hooves, it is not easy."
"No, I suppose you're right," returned Celestia. "However, may I get to my dream?"
"Ah, of course, sister," said Luna. Celestia almost felt bad for giving a sigh of relief as her sister faded away.
As the first signs of dawn crept through the windows, something felt wrong to Princess Luna. Perhaps she had just grown used to the repetitive insertion of diskettes and waiting for loading bars, but now, one night later- or, for all she knew, perhaps it had already been two nights and a day- it was asking for Diskette 1, and it was asking which drive it was in.
Warily, she replaced the diskette with Installation Diskette 01, and, having remembered some time back that the computer had referenced it as the A drive, she told the computer it was in drive A. The computer beeped at her, and she tried Drive B. The computer beeped at her, and she tried Drive C. The computer beeped at her, and she remembered a different Diskette 01. She levitated the FI Disk 01, and horrifyingly, it was accepted. The computer beeped, asking for Diskette 02.
The sky outside was dark again, and at first Luna was sure night had already fallen as she toiled through the installations, but a sharp cracking noise made her realize that a storm had arrived. Another crack of what now registered in her mind as thunder rang through the castle, and suddenly a shower of sparks filled the room, and her monitor went dead.
Luna nearly leapt forward, shouting, "No! Come back to me, computer!" She slammed the computer with her hooves, pouring magic at it in a futile attempt to- she wasn't even sure what she was trying to achieve. Sobbing, she looked up as the lights returned, and she dared toggle her computer's power, but the damage was far worse than just halting her progress.
Her computer would not turn on.
Author's Note
Originally, DOOM was gonna be mentioned, but I thought Greifenstein 3D would be funnier because 1. it's a parody instead of just a direct nod, and 2. Equestria at War reference.
Also, the downer ending is because I am literally installing OS/2 while writing this and AAAH it actually takes this long, I'm sorry, but I can't go on.
