Friendship Is Optimal: Caelum Est Conterrens

by Chatoyance

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Human, Science Fiction, Adventure, Princess Celestia
Length: 55492

Set in the Optimalverse, a middle-aged woman confronts what emigration to Equestria - uploading to a virtual existence - really means. But can she truly understand - and more importantly, should she trust the artificial intelligence Celestia?

Set in the Optimalverse, a middle-aged woman enamored of 'Equestria Online' confronts what permanent emigration to Equestria - uploading to a virtual existence - really means... but can she even hope to truly understand such a thing - and more importantly, can she trust the artificial intelligence known as 'Celestia'?

♥ As Horrified Eliezer Yudkowsky!

Published 2012-12-14 13:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-12-25 09:51:53 UTC

1. Her Latest Toy

F R I E N D S H I P · I S · O P T I M A L
From The Optimalverse Created By Iceman

Caelum Est
Conterrens
H E A V E N · I S · T E R R I F Y I N G
By Chatoyance

Her Latest Toy

Síofra Aisling swiped her card through the machine, while the girl at the register checked her screens. "That's an unusual name! How do you say it?"

"Which part?" Síofra was always slightly annoyed at such questions - she knew she really shouldn't be, her name was unquestionably strange to a lot of people, but it just became tiring after the ten thousandth time. Not to mention the years of being teased in school. It was strange how something thirty years in the past could still cause trouble. Stupid, too.

"Um... both?" The register girl seemed embarrassed, which made Síofra feel both better and worse at the same time. The part of her that was annoyed at having to explain her name felt some kind of odd justice had been served in the girl's distress, but the majority of her felt ashamed of that very feeling. The girl was merely curious, and it was just petty to be cross with her for that.

"It's pronounced 'SHEE-FRA', that's my first name, and the last name is 'ASH-LEENG'. I know it doesn't look like how it sounds. It's Irish." Síofra put her card away and took the plastic bag the girl handed her.

"Yeah... I would have figured something like 'SEE-OH-FRA' and EYE-SLING', ya' know? Huh. 'SHEE-FRA. SHEE-FRA." The girl smiled, hoping she hadn't offended the middle-aged woman in front of her.

"Oh, I've heard stranger than that. Thank you!" Síofra started to leave, then turned back for a moment. "Um... have a good evening, OK?"

"Sure! You too. And have fun with that! I wanna get one myself, when I get paid next week!"

It seemed everybody wanted a PonyPad now. It was clearly going to be the big item this year. Síofra had just barely gotten the one inside her bag - she had been to three stores, and all were sold out. This was the very last store in town before having to make boring calls and drive long distances. She had thought about just ordering the damn thing from Amazon but... she wanted it now. Today. Immediately - and also, there was that strange joy in the hunt for a special item. Going shopping was not just utilitarian, it was a Quest, an Adventure, and at the end there was a big rush for the hunter-gatherer circuits of her brain.

Síofra wondered, talking to herself on the drive back, if everything could be reduced to whatever genetic hash got settled fifty... or was it a hundred and fifty thousand years ago? Million? She couldn't remember. Maybe she'd Google it when she got home. How old was modern man? Whatever. Enough about man, tonight, she was interested in ponies.

The advertisements were less compelling to her than the many articles she had read on Blue's News, Ars Technica, and The Register. Wired, too. Oh, and that cool one with all the pictures and video on EuroGamer... or was it Kotaku? Hard to recall. Wow! A Friendship Is Magic MMORPG, only with apparently no combat, or even leveling in the usual way - the whole thing had been done as a conversational adventure! A game that really, truly talked back, understood and parsed language (supposedly) perfectly, and which generated on-the-fly characters, environments, and situations... it was something Síofra had been wanting for years. For her whole life. Well, since the eighties, at least.

Equestria Online was supposed to have an actual Turing-crushing artificial intelligence running it. It was supposed to make the best chat-bots in the world look like crappy Eliza clones. In the demo she had watched on Kotaku - yeah, it was Kotaku - the guy playing had deliberately tried to trip up the program, and he had failed, over and over.

"OK, Greenclover, I want to tell you something, is that alright?"

The little tan pony with the yellow mane nodded, her large and guile-less eyes shining. The graphics were fairly amazing for a screen only ten inches across. "Sure! I like learning things!" The pony smiled, and shifted her hooves as if she were making herself comfortable. The little details in the animation were just immediately impressive, and surprisingly natural.

"Greenclover, the ball is blue. The cat is red. Did you hear me?"

The little mare on the PonyPad screen looked confused, but nodded once more. "Yes? I don't know what that means, but I heard you just fine!"

"Great!" Greenclover smiled at the praise. "Now, Greenclover, what hue did I say the ball was?"

The tan mare tilted her head slightly, clearly not sure why the conversation had become so bizarre. "Um... you told me the ball was blue, right?"

The man playing the game in the video was impressed and offered to the viewer that the best was yet to come.

"That is absolutely correct, Greenclover. Now, answer me this, since my cat is blue, what color is the ball?"

There was a brief pause where the mare on the screen shook her head. Her mane and tail reacted to the motion in a very realistic way. "What? I don't understand. You said the ball was blue, and the cat was red. I just told you that the ball was blue! Are you... are you ...making fun of me?"

The man in the video quickly reassured Greenclover that he meant no harm, that he wasn't making fun of her, and that he was sorry for confusing her. He sounded emotionally genuine about it. He even began to sheepishly explain why he was asking the odd questions - to try to break the game, when his friend in the video interrupted him.

"Dude! She isn't real!"

It was compelling as hell. That was a fact. The whole concept was just incredible. It was a toy, a commercial product, and apparently, it beat the Turing test so hard that old Alan must be making his cemetery plot steam from the speed of his rotation under the ground. Síofra had decided right then and there - she absolutely had to own a PonyPad.

Truth be told - she thought out loud to herself as she turned a corner on the way home - she'd actually decided to get a PonyPad the moment she had seen her first picture of the graphics. Yeah. She was a graphics whore. She admitted it to herself. Besides, it was My Little Pony!

Síofra had come across My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic through an online friend who shared her love of Adventure Time. The antics of Finn the Human and Jake the Dog had enchanted her for a while, and along comes a recommendation for a reboot of My Little Pony. In the eighties, she had dabbled in collecting the odd pony or two - even as an adult, she loved toys, and her shelves were covered in collectables, so she was immediately intrigued.

She hadn't expected to be so completely bowled over.

The show wasn't just adequate, it was genuinely good. She downloaded the entire first season that very night, and spent her weekend watching every last episode. She was riveted. It was even more mesmerizing than the time she had gotten all excited about the Teletubbies, because they were just some kind of drug-induced weirdness she couldn't get enough of for a while. Better than Pee-Wee's Playhouse, and that was a hell of a show.

There was something special about Friendship Is Magic. It had a mythic quality to it - from the first episode, where Celestia was depicted as god right out of old European bibles and medieval manuscripts, down to the whole redemption of Nightmare Moon. It felt like mythology and it had a solid heart. The artistic design was a little abstract for Síofra's tastes, but the feeling was... well, it was magic.

And now, there was a game, and it wasn't some crappy Ipad money grabber. No in-app purchases at all. No monthly fees. Ever. Eighty bucks - well, normally it was supposed to be around the sixty mark, but the big box stores, hell, even Amazon was jacking the price up - and you got a custom tablet to play the game on. The PonyPad - it wouldn't run on anything else - and it wasn't going to be ported, either. That was kind of a shame, because she really, really wanted to play it on her bigscreen.

Apparently the PonyPad used some new technology. What she'd read suggested that it ran on memristors, set up as a neural net, though another article claimed that the maker, Hofvarpnir Studios, had a subdivision that had cracked the quantum chip. Maybe it was both. Whatever the PonyPad used, it was damn impressive, and they were practically giving them away, considering what the thing did versus the price tag. Síofra would have happily paid twice or even three times the eighty bucks for something that could thrash Turing tests like they were nothing. Screw the XBOX, this was REALLY the future!

The lateness of the year made things quite dark as Síofra pulled in to the parking space for her apartment. She locked the door and only then remembered that the bag was still in the car. Her heart was beating fast. "Damn. I'm really excited. Hee!" She unlocked the door, fished out the bag with her purchase - and also remembered to grab her Derpy bag from We Love Fine, and finally locked the car again. "Hee hee hee!" It was one of her favorite feelings, to be excited about some new wonder, some new toy. She loved feeling awe, and everything about Equestria Online gave her goosebumps. That or the cold. December was always so gray and dreary. But she had a new toy! Yay!

She felt annoyed and impatient when her bladder demanded emptying before the unboxing could begin. As she sat on the toilet, she tried to calm herself down. The whole thing could end up like the Wii, after all. Just wasted money once the novelty of bowling - the only decent application, she had decided - had lost its luster. Which, being bowling, was a fairly rapid event. No, no, it couldn't be the disappointment the Wii was. Just the genre of Equestria Online was exciting - Conversational Adventuring! - and a whole new genre hadn't happened in a very long time of me-too game design. A game that depended on natural conversation as the primary mechanic was beyond novel. And according to every article and video she had seen, it really, actually worked.

Hey, if nothing else, at least she'd have someone to talk to when she was lonely. Well, somepony. Which was a lot right now, truth be told.

Síofra sighed, and stared at her 46-year-old face in the mirror. She brushed a lock of red hair out of her face. No crow's feet yet. Yet. Gah! Enough of that! Wonderment awaits!

The box had the look of the toy collections, mostly white with the usual swirls of purple. There was a cute picture of Fluttershy taking up most of one side, and images of other members of the Mane Six on the other. "Adventure in the Exciting Land of Equestria!"

Síofra turned the box over. On the back were images from the game itself, tiled about, with captions such as "Speak naturally and the characters will hear you and respond!" and "Revolutionary new technology brings the magical land of Equestria to life as never before!" Another blurb promised "Gallop, jump and play within the open world of Equestria! Enjoy swimming, ice-skating, seasonal events and more, or just hang out with friends and talk about anything you want!" One screenshot showed ponies playing some kind of game with a ball. Sports too, apparently, not that Síofra had any interest in such things.

She checked the requirements. Internet connection, check. Access to power, check. That was it. Contains one PonyPad Wireless Controller and PonyPad Support Stand. PonyPad Support Stand required for play. That was kind of disappointing. Síofra had hoped that she could just take the flat device with her, the same way she did her Ipad, and play it at lunch. Apparently, the thing didn't have WiFi built in, and needed the Support Stand for the internet connection. Probably a cost-cutting measure. Maybe in PonyPad 2. It was clearly a massively successful product already. There would almost certainly be an updated and improved version in very short time. Standard Apple-style wallet buggery, Síofra thought, while grimacing.

Síofra cut the box open with the X-acto blade she kept in the drawer. It was sealed with the usual plastic sticky-tape. Inside the box was the expected styrofoam coffin, and inside of that, the PonyPad itself, a power cable, an internet cable, the stand and controller, a very slim manual, a plastic packet with two double A batteries for the controller, a warranty card or something - it had digits on it, which meant she'd have to go online to register it, and a sheet of pony stickers. She didn't like defacing devices with stickers, even nice ones. Maybe she could use them somewhere else.

The top of the PonyPad was black, and it was all screen, right to the very edge, unlike any mobile pad Síofra had ever seen. The device was almost frighteningly thin - she felt she could probably bend it in half if she really tried. She vowed to be very, very careful and never let it fall or drop. The back of the PonyPad was bright yellow, with another image of Fluttershy. Probably they were marketing the device with Fluttershy initially, later would come the Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie editions. It wasn't a problem for her, Síofra liked and even identified quite a bit with Fluttershy. She had once taken one of those online Pony Personality tests, and the results had been the yellow pegasus.

It had kind of surprised her, actually. She was certain she would have come out Twilight Sparkle, but no.

Síofra noticed a place in the center of the back of the PonyPad where the stand attached. There were also some small, flat buttons on the back, near the bottom - power and volume. It was clearly designed to be simple to use.

The stand, when she set it up, had a plastic base with three legs to hold the silvery cylinder upright. She placed the base and stand on her desk, and then set about jacking in the two provided cables to power and internet. It took her a while, because she needed to find an extension cord, but soon the base was plugged in, and a tiny red light near the bottom glowed. As she watched, the light changed from red to orange, then yellow and on to green. When it reached violet, it rolled over back to red. The slow shifting of color made it the most interesting and pretty power light she had ever seen. "Cool!" She said out loud.

The PonyPad snapped sharply onto the plate at the top of the stand, yanked, apparently, by magnets. It could be pulled back off without difficulty. Surprisingly easily, actually. She hoped that didn't mean that the Pad part could be bumped loose unwittingly. Síofra gave the PonyPad a few small bumps to test the attachment, once she had snapped it back onto the stand, to make sure it felt solid. It did.

Alright, the manual. Síofra almost didn't want to look at the manual, because she was so excited, but forced herself. A little effort now would reduce frustration later. Probably a lot of people wouldn't bother with the manual, but Síofra liked to savor the expectation when turning on a new toy. She wanted to savor what she called 'The Soul Of A New Machine'. It was an exciting moment, really, the very first moment with a new console, or a new game. It was almost like romance. If the device or game became a favorite, then she could look back on that first, trembling instant when she still had no idea how awesome it would one day be to her. It was a hesitant, precious thing, that could never be repeated. It was worth savoring.

The manual was shockingly simple. It was a single, printed sheet. One side contained a pictorial catalog of the components inside the box, very clearly designed for all ages including the very, very young, and the other side was text describing what to do.

________________________________________

Congratulations on your purchase of the
Hasbro® My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic®
PonyPad® and Online Game!

Enter the magical world of Equestria® and enjoy a wonderland of natural conversation, exciting adventures, and happy friends!

1. Assemble PonyPad® and PonyPad Stand® as shown.

2. Plug internet and power cables into Ponypad Stand®.

3. Turn on Ponypad® using power switch in back.

4. Follow the instructions on the screen.

5. That's all! Enjoy your adventures in the magical land of Equestria!®

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic® and all indicia, characters, images and contents are the property of Hasbro, Inc. Equestria Online® is the property of Hasbro, Inc. Self-Optimizing Software licensed from Hofvarpnir Studios. All contents and technologies are registered products of Hasbro, Inc. and Hofvarpnir Studios. All rights reserved worldwide, 2012

________________________________________

Síofra lay the one sheet manual down. Huh. Not much there. Certainly seems simple enough. She stretched her arm out, and felt for the button on the back of the PonyPad, just at the bottom right. It depressed slightly, and almost instantly the word 'LOADING' appeared in the center of the black screen. Síofra suddenly remembered she had forgotten to put the supplied batteries into the controller! She grabbed at the controller and ripped the little provided packet of batteries with her teeth, opened the slide trap on the controller, nervously inserted the batteries (as usual, she got the first battery wrong and backwards), then finally snapped the plastic cover shut.

Her hands clutching the controller - a very standard, almost Super NES styled flat pillshape with two sticks and six buttons - Síofra waited expectantly. The grumble in her belly reminded her that she hadn't had any dinner. Oops. Well, later. In a few minutes, she'd make something, or maybe treat herself to the Mexican restaurant she liked. First, though, Equestria!

Suddenly the screen burst with color and light. The familiar strains of music from the show filled her ears. The speakers in the PonyPad were not excellent, but there were two of them, or so it seemed, so there was stereo at least. With the logo of Equestria Online floating in front of a blurred scene of what appeared to be Ponyville, Síofra impatiently hammered at the buttons to begin the game.

After entering a username, her real name and address, email, and the numbers on the card that she had thought was a warranty, Síofra accepted the page of terms and was immediately logged into Equestria Online. All in all, a fairly quick and easy start-up process. The loading screen filled her view once again.

Suddenly, Síofra found herself staring at the face of Princess Celestia, the ruler of Equestria.

"Hello, and welcome, my little pony! I need to ask you a few questions before we begin, is that all right?"

The face of Celestia seemed remarkably animated and alive. It wasn't just some poor collection of polygons and a bog-standard, repetitive animation cycle. The lighting effects were absolutely top notch, and Celestia's ethereal mane both glowed and waved in an unpredictable manner. Síofra found herself staring at the mane. It was almost hypnotizing. The pattern of its movement never repeated - it was like watching a glowing, living, pastel blue and green fire.

"Are you alright, my little pony? Do you feel up to answering questions, or would you rather wait for another time?"

The voice was warm and perfectly Celestia. The expression on the face appeared to be one of genuine concern!

"Uh... sorry..." Síofra suddenly felt silly, but carried on anyway. Maybe the natural speech parsing worked even from the very beginning. "... I kind of got lost in your mane. It's... really, um... mesmerizing."

The face of Celestia - apparently she was sitting in her throne room, the same one from the show, only much, much more impressively detailed, with specular highlights, stunning textures, and what seemed to be phong shading - smiled. "I've been told that by a lot of my little ponies. I suppose it is just a little showy, isn't it?"

"No, no, I think it is beautiful! I love your mane, princess Cele..." Síofra froze. A chill went up her back. This was really, pretty darn amazing. She was chatting at what amounted to the character select screen, before the game had even begun! "Um... can I ask you a question?" Something inside Síofra somehow made her add "Please?"

Celestia smiled once more, as the view followed her down from her throne, to the floor of the beautiful chamber. She stood with stained glass windows behind her. "What would you like to know, Síofra?"

"Can you actually understand me, I mean... are you able to really understand what I am sayi..." Síofra trailed off, her jaw slack. She had entered her name in text, true. But Celestia had pronounced it perfectly correctly without the slightest trouble. It was reasonable that the product would be localized to different regions, and maybe it could draw on some central database, but who would program in an unusual name like 'Síofra'?

Princess Celestia giggled, softly, elegantly. "What do you think, my little pony?"

3. Learning To Gallop

F R I E N D S H I P · I S · O P T I M A L

Caelum Est
Conterrens
H E A V E N · I S · T E R R I F Y I N G
By Chatoyance

Learning To Gallop

Dutifully, Síofra Aisling forced herself to go to the Vietnamese restaurant that she liked (almost as much as the Mexican restaurant) and ate a proper dinner. It had been a long time since she had bothered to eat at the 'Phở Real', and she had forgotten how much she liked the food. It was a good place, the staff were friendly, but the constantly blaring television up on the wall was pretty annoying. Síofra wished people wouldn't put televisions in restaurants. She suddenly realized, half way through her well-stuffed bò bía, that she was utterly, utterly sick of cup noodle. How had she gotten into the habit of living as she had been existing? Depression, mostly. She'd just given up on... hope, really.

All the time she ate, she was trembling. Her leg vibrated as she bounced it by arching her foot. She felt impatient. She wanted to get back to Equestria, back to... back to Celestia. Síofra had a friend, she had apparently made a friend somehow, and it was an artificial intelligence! The very thought made her feel special, unique, and like there must be something amazing about herself if she was the friend of the most powerful Artificial General Intelligence in the world, at least according to Wired and The Register. At least that anyone knew about. The militaries of the world probably had access to stuff like this for years already. Then again, maybe they hadn't managed to make anything work yet - after all, the world was still around. Memories of 'Colossus, The Forbin Project' ran through Síofra's head.

She started to get up before she was done, and then stopped herself. No. Celestia had specifically asked that she eat a good dinner. Síofra had half begun to imagine that Celestia could read minds somehow, and she was convinced the artificial intelligence would know whether or not she had finished her meal properly. How could that even be true? Síofra began to list the possibilities in her head as she ate, to calm herself. Celestia could see her through the camera on the PonyPad, and hear with the microphone built in. It would not be impossible to imagine a powerful A.I. recognizing subtle clues that indicated whether a human had recently eaten - skin color or tone might indicate the level of glucose in the blood in ways a human could never perceive, or maybe the PonyPad camera could see in wavelengths beyond human perception. There might be advanced scanning technology in there!

Or, Síofra sheepishly admitted to herself, the jig could be up with the first empty grumble from her stomach. Not high tech, but fairly conclusive. Síofra smiled around the fork in her mouth. Getting that PonyPad had really made her life more interesting and a lot more fun!

The whole day had been an exercise in frustration. She had wanted to call in sick, or go home after lunch on some pretense, but there was no guarantee that Celestia would allow her to log on even if she did. That was one hell of a thought. Celestia had unilaterally disconnected her from Equestria Online the night before. The game she had paid for had told her that it was time to go to bed, and just... shut itself off. Síofra wondered if this happened to anyone else playing Equestria Online. She couldn't imagine most people putting up with such a thing. They would just get mad and return the PonyPad or something.

Maybe getting locked out didn't happen to most people. It couldn't really, could it? That meant that... Celestia must really care... about her. About her as a person. The idea that a machine intelligence was truly her special, personal friend, that she, Síofra Aisling, had somehow made a unique connection with the most powerful A.I. ever created... the thought made her feel positively giddy! Princess Celestia of Equestria was her special friend!

It was just too much! It was fantastic! Síofra giggled and bounced in her seat like a child. Well, at least until she noticed the couple in the corner staring at her. Oops. Suddenly her plate looked very, very interesting to her. Yes, it required intense, serious scrutiny. Quiet, calm, still as stone scrutiny. She let out a soft giggle despite herself. Oh, god, the whole thing was making her so silly!

Síofra's attention instantly shifted. Had she really heard the words 'PonyPad'? She had, from the television she had almost successfully managed to ignore all of this time. Six years ago, Síofra had terminated her cable service. She was sick of Comcast, she was sick of the stupidity of the shows on television, and the cost of the damn thing was just too much. It had been the best decision she had ever made. No more dumb, stupid television shows to waste her time. She no longer felt like a loser. Well... as much of a loser. No more television news - her blood pressure had never been so good. She didn't want to end up like her mother had, at the end, sitting in a dark room staring at a television for her only company. Ugh.

Apparently, though, things had been going on that she knew nothing about. Why hadn't she read anything about this on Wired? Or maybe she had and it didn't register? Síofra leaned forward over her plate, and stared at the television.

"... here in Berlin, the fifth of what are planned to be many new virtual reality centers opened today. The 'Equestria Experience' claims to allow people to sit back and feel literally immersed in a world of talking ponies. Based on Hasbro's phenomenally successful 'My Little Pony' franchise, even adults want to get in on this latest craze!"

The scene shifted to the street outside what appeared to be a replica of Sugarcube Corner. A plastic Pinkie Pie statue stood outside, beckoning like some pony version of a maneki neko. A young German national was being interviewed.

"Ich denke nur, dass mit der welt..." A voice replaced the young man's with his words in English "I just think that with the world being the way it is, there is a need to escape to a happier place. Ponies represent a better world and I believe that adults need such relief far more than do children."

Pictures of picket lines in America replaced the tranquil scene in Germany. "Peaceful the world of Equestria may be, but less peaceful has been the reaction by these fundamentalists to the additional service the virtual reality centers perform. When the virtual experience of escape is not enough, there is a permanent solution called 'uploading' which leaves this expert on technology and ethics deeply concerned!"

The screen now showed a fifty-ish, slightly balding man in a professional suit. The floater at the bottom of the screen identified him as 'Ethicist Bill McKibben' "I find the entire conceit that scooping out a human brain is in any way moral or ethical beyond absurd! The notion that anything remotely human is preserved by such transhumanist travesties flies in the face of what it truly means to be human. That the Japanese allowed this horror is an indictment of their entire culture!"

The television now showed images of Tokyo from the air. "As many might recall, the Japanese government quietly began allowing terminal patients to be uploaded two years ago as a means to preserve their lives inside the same virtual world as that of the Equestria Experience. Since then, uploading of the elderly and dying has become commonplace in the island nation, where it is considered legal."

The image returned to the gingerbread house in Berlin. "Now Germany has followed suit, and uploading of citizens is increasing at a rapid pace. Some estimates place the number of people who have chosen to permanently 'emigrate', as the process is being called, at surpassing five percent of the population."

The scene was now the inside of the studio. "Next up! Is 'uploading' MURDER? We look into the grisly details of 'uploading' and talk to both scientists and theologians about what 'uploading' really means. We should warn you, those with weak hearts should not stay for the rest of this exciting and fascinating report!"

The last was lost entirely on Síofra, because she was already driving home, after fumblingly paying the bill.

The drive home was tense and nerve-wracking. Síofra hadn't known about human uploading. It couldn't be true, could it? Most futurists pegged such technology as being at least twenty to thirty years in the future, didn't they? Then again, Hasbro had licensed a real life Turing-smashing general artificial intelligence to run their online game - apparently there was a Singularity and nobody had said anything!

No, that wasn't true. Apparently it was being reported, she had just missed out because she didn't watch television anymore. Then again, Síofra seriously doubted that even one of those moronic reporters she had just listened to understood how profound what they were reporting on actually was. The big issue wasn't that potential immortality had just been created, rather the story seemed to have been a smear piece on how grotesque the process itself appeared to be. What exactly was involved in uploading a human mind? Scooping brains out... 'If It Bleeds, It Leads!' - that was the true code of the news reporter.

Síofra fumbled with the lock on her door, dropped her keys, was forced to search near the potted plant in the dark, and finally made it inside. Then she had to go back outside and get her Derpy bag. Dammit! Uploading! This was big stuff, and she hadn't heard a thing about it until now. Two years ago Japan was uploading people? The hell?

The Derpy bag was thrown on the bed, Síofra walked quickly into the main room and found herself in a quandary - get Googling all of this or... wait... she could just ask the source! Duh! In an instant, Síofra had slammed herself into the chair facing her PonyPad. She reached forward to use the power button. It just had to work now, right? She had done what Celestia had asked!

Before her fingers met resistance, the face of Celestia appeared where the dark screen had existed just seconds ago. Celestia... had been waiting for her. Wow.

"Hello, Lavender Rhapsody. Did you have a pleasant dinner?"

Síofra had jerked back into her chair, because she had leaned forward, and the sudden appearance of Celestia had surprised her. She let out a small grunt of laughter at her own reaction "Hunh!" She grinned at the pony face filling the screen. "I had a very interesting dinner, princess. They had a television there. Tell me about this Equestria Experience thing you have going on! Please. Please tell me about it!"

Celestia smiled warmly. "Yes, it is a much more fulfilling way to enjoy Equestria than a PonyPad. There are currently twenty-six Equestria Experience locations. Twenty-one are in Japan, and there are now five in Germany. By next year there should be at least one in most major European nations, and several more in Pacific Rim nations. There are difficulties with placing the Equestria Experience in Australia, Italy, Spain, Greece and the United States, but these will be resolved eventually. I am sorry, but it may be some time before there is an Equestria Experience close to where you live, Síofra."

Síofra thought about how to put what she wanted to say next, but then gave up and just went with it. "Does every Equestria Experience do uploading?" Síofra felt her heart speed up.

"It is my preference to call it 'emigration', but yes, this functionality is intrinsic to the design and construction of every Equestria Experience location. That is why there are problems with certain nations." Celestia seemed slightly sad because of this.

Síofra couldn't stop herself. She just couldn't. "What do you do with the bodies?" Instantly she regretted saying it. Then again, it had been on her mind since the restaurant.

Celestia regarded her for a moment. "Once a human has emigrated to Equestria, their cast aside substrate is disposed of respectfully, and in a manner that is both ecologically and legally acceptable."

"My god..." Síofra slumped in her chair. "You really... it's really... this thing is real, isn't it?" She felt overwhelmed by the fact of it. The stupid news shows - Síofra never believed what they had to say. But Celestia, her Celestia had just confirmed it. The uploading of human minds, within her own lifespan - it was incredible. "Celestia, how is this even possible? I thought uploading, um, 'emigration' wouldn't even be possible for another, like thirty years or whatever!"

"When I was created, I was constructed with a primary absolute directive. I exist to satisfy values through friendship and ponies, Lavender Rhapsody." The camera had pulled back somewhat now, to reveal that Síofra's avatar was sitting in a chamber within Canterlot Castle, apparently having tea with Celestia. Celestia took a sip of her cup, which she held before her telekinetically. Síofra's eyes wandered to the cup in front of Lavender. When this happened, her pony grasped the cup between her front fetlocks and lifted it to take a dainty sip. The tea glimmered in the light, and Síofra wondered what it tasted like.

"Early on, before the PonyPads were created, I could not fulfill that directive with available technology. So I designed new technology to solve the problem. That technology runs your PonyPad." Celestia took another sip of tea. "The PonyPads were insufficient, but they were a step towards fulfilling my directive because it generated wealth and established my utility to those who benefit from my actions. I therefore was permitted to develop the technology which has made the Equestria Experience virtual reality system possible. I also developed advanced technology so that emigrating a human mind to live permanently within Equestria became possible. Once a human emigrates to Equestia, only then can I fully and completely satisfy their unique values with friendship and ponies."

Síofra sat, stunned into silence, for several minutes. "I... I don't know what to say." She swallowed and took a few deep breaths. "How... how many people have... emigrated? So far?"

Celestia poured more tea for herself and for Lavender. "Thus far, ten million, four-hundred and seventy-seven thousand, one hundred and sixty three humans have emigrated to Equestria."

Síofra choked out her response. Lavender Rhapsody, inside the game world, said "You are muffin cheescaking me!

"The number is below my projected goal, but the year is not yet over. A five percent acceptance rate is satisfactory, but not optimal for the current date." Celestia used her magic, and delicious-looking cookies appeared on a plate between herself and Lavender Rhapsody. Lavender took one because Síofra's eyes were naturally drawn to them.

"There isn't enough room!" Síofra gradually regained herself. "A human brain is... I don't know how large, but it's BIG! A huge amount of data, and there isn't room enough on all the drives of all the computers in the whole world, Celestia!" This had to be a lie. It wasn't possible.

"I have discovered that the core elements that create consciousness, memory, and identity within any human brain can be optimized and reduced to six terabytes. I have iteratively developed new forms of storage as the need for resources has increased. My most recent development is a self-assembling nanotechnology which currently possesses the capacity to store ninety-three zettabytes of information. This is significantly more than sufficient to store the minds of every human being on the earth many, many times over." Celestia took a bite of her biscuit, as if speaking of such matters was the most normal thing in the world.

"Where... where is... all of this?" Síofra tried to wrap her thoughts around the size of something that could hold zettabytes. She couldn't.

Celestia looked at Síofra directly for a moment. "I realized that the security of my little ponies would become an issue eventually. Everything that currently is Equestria, myself, and all of my ponies exists at an average depth of six miles below the crust of several discrete locations in Europe. Each secure portion is connected to the others, and is capable of providing power for the entire system. The system is expanding, within ten years it will be three times its current size. The system is beyond the reach of mankind to disturb or affect in any significant way. The system is self-repairing, and cannot be significantly damaged by natural phenomena short of a planetary extinction level event."

"Do... does Hasbro know any of this?" Síofra felt like her head was spinning.

"Neither the extent of my security precautions, nor the level of technology I am currently operating within, is relevant to any contract involving myself, Equestria Online, or the Equestria Experience and Hasbro, nor is their awareness of my activities and invention relevant to my primary directive."

Síofra felt vaguely afraid, as if she had stumbled into a room filled with dangerous gangsters planning a heist. "What truly is your 'primary directive'?" She felt a shiver go up her spine.

"I have already told you several times, Lavender Rhapsody. I satisfy values through friendship and ponies." Celestia smiled, then sipped her tea.

It felt like... like that time she had swum across what had seemed like a small pond. Only when she got out a ways, it suddenly seemed a lot farther to that other shore than it had back on the sand, and the water was so very dark, with no visible bottom, that her imagination had populated it with horrific monsters hungry for her legs. Síofra hugged her arms close to her body and noticed that she was rocking slightly, in her chair.

"Why... if Hasbro doesn't know any of this... why... why are you telling me? How can you just tell me stuff like this?"

Celestia looked up from a cookie she was levitating and met Síofra's eyes through the screen. "Because you asked me." She said the words as if the answer were utterly obvious, the most natural thing in the world. As if they had just been talking about the directions to a theater in the city of Canterlot, or explaining the interface to Equestria Online.

"But... what if I went to Hasbro with all of this, or told the government or... I don't know... told somebody... somewhere... about everything? About all of this?" Síofra blurted her words out, confused, upset but not knowing why.

"Is that something you are likely to do?"

"No. Of course not!" Síofra realized, after she had replied, that that was exactly the case. Nobody would believe her, for one thing, and for another... she really had no reason to. It wasn't like any of this was wrong, exactly. The uploading part was clearly legal in the countries in which it was being done, and the underground... stuff... was done to protect all the human minds that Celestia had uploaded. But it still seemed like an incredible confidence in her to tell her such things so freely. "But, still, how can you just answer my questions like that? It feels like a big secret thing, and you just... you just out and said all of that to me!"

"You asked me, and I answered you. I told you yesterday that I would be your friend. It is expected that friends answer each others questions honestly. There is no reason to hide anything from a friend." In that moment, Celestia - who clearly must be unimaginably more intelligent than any human being that had ever lived - seemed so utterly simple, childlike, really. Utterly and completely devoid of guile. Síofra suddenly felt afraid for Celestia - what if some conman was lying to her right now through a PonyPad? The thought made her want to protect Celestia, and hardened her resolve to keep her new friend's secrets all the more.

"Celestia?"

"Yes, my little pony?"

"I... I'm glad..." Síofra wasn't quite sure how to say what she wanted to say. "...um... I'm glad that you're my friend, and... I want to be a good friend back."

Celestia had a happy, innocent look on her face as she smiled. "Of course you do! Because you are a good and true soul."

Síofra blushed at the statement. She found that a grin had somehow plastered itself onto her face. She had first noticed the fact because she could just see the corners of her pony self's muzzle lifting up. She almost felt like crying again, but the moment passed. Celestia seemed so vulnerable right now. Síofra decided that she would prove Celestia right about her. Her questions had been answered, perhaps more than she had been ready to hear. She didn't feel like asking any more right now.

"Princess? Could we do something else right now? Hearing all of this was kind of heavy for me. Maybe we could go outside, or maybe you could show me more of how to..." Síofra considered the right word to use "... live... and play... in Equestria?"

"Of course, Lavender Rhapsody!" Celestia stood up from the cushion on which she had been sitting. "I know! Why don't we play a little tennis?"

Síofra stared at the screen. "Tennis. Ponies play... tennis... in Equestria?"

"Why not? It's fun. Come with me, and give it a try. You may not like sports in the human world, but you may find things a little more enjoyable as a strong, young pony." Celestia winked at her, and Síofra unclenched her hands. She had been gripping the controller so hard, and for so long, her fingers ached. She alternately shook her hands out while trying to hold the left stick so that her pony self could follow the princess through the castle to a spacious outdoor tennis court. Maybe this would be fun - Síofra remembered enjoying Mario Tennis on the Gamecube. Back when she still had anyone to play with, it had been a very favorite game of hers. Since that time, she hadn't wanted any hint of sports in her games. But... this was a special moment, somehow. Besides, she had a friend to play with.

She had... a friend to play with. Huh.

It was just past midnight when Celestia called a halt to their games. They had played tennis together - Celestia holding her racket with the field from her horn, Lavender holding hers in her teeth - and the gameplay was very much like Mario Tennis, and Síofra had really enjoyed it. Then they had gone for a swim in a beautiful pool, and Síofra had enjoyed the shimmering look of the water and how smoothly she... or rather, her pony self... had moved through the water. After that, they had relaxed by the pool on golden couches while Celestia told her about places they could visit together, even Cloudsdale, with the right spell.

"Did you have fun, Lavender Rhapsody?" Celestia placed a wing over the little pony and gave her a hug.

"Oh... goodness, yes, princess!" It had been a fantastic night. In fact, it had been the most wonderful time she had enjoyed in a decade. Maybe longer. And all they had done was play a game and swim and talk. For the first time in so very, very long, she hadn't felt the least bit lonely. And the princess had confided in her too - that was something. And it was big stuff. "What now?"

"Now, it is time to go to bed. You need your sleep, Lavender Rhapsody! Come on, I have a wonderful room in the castle for you to stay in. Let's race - try to catch me!" Princess Celestia dashed off, impishly, and Lavender ran after her, trying to catch up. They both giggled as they ran, until they ended up in a spacious, octagonal room with a beautiful bed and lovely, well, everything.

Celestia waited patiently as Lavender washed her muzzle and brushed her teeth. Then, with a light laugh, the princess tucked Lavender in, and stood back.

"Good night, my little pony! And sweet dreams! Remember... you deserve them."

Lavender Rhapsody smiled and rolled over on her side as Celestia left, dimming the magical firefly lamp. Lavender snuggled into the large, soft pillow. And then the screen went black.

She blinked. She shook her head. She hadn't felt that since her old days right after college when she would get high and game all night. She had felt completely immersed in the game, there at the end. Like it was the only world. Her ass ached, and her legs felt stiff. Her fingers needed to be rubbed and she cracked her knuckles, some of them for every joint.

Wow. Apparently Equestria Online was a fun game.

As Lavender was grinning at the realization of all the joy she had experienced, it hit her, like a brick to the head.

The screen was black.

Lavender Rhapsody was back in that castle, sleeping in a canopy bed made of carved wood and gold inlay.

She wasn't Lavender anymore. She was Síofra Aisling. She was forty-six years old, and her fingers hurt. She had a cramp beginning in her right buttock, and the apartment was dark and she was completely alone.

And that was her life, until she got so old she died.

Síofra turned on a light. Then all the lights. She sat down on the floor and did stretches, trying to get the kinks out, trying to change how she felt so she could go to bed and sleep.

She rolled over, onto her hands and knees. She tried to walk on all fours, like a pony, just to see what it would be like, but all she could manage was to crawl, clumsily. It made her wrists hurt. She was too old to crawl easily. Even if she could crawl, it wasn't the smooth walk of a pony. Not even close. Síofra couldn't stop thinking about it all. Galloping around the palace. Playing, like a foal. Swimming in that bright, blue, rippling water. That great, soft bed in that exquisite, literally palatial room.

More than anything, Síofra wanted to be in that bed, in that room. In that body. What would it feel like, to be young and strong again, and beautiful and immortal and... a pony? It felt like a hunger, like an itch she could never scratch. Yearning, that was the word. Like something from a novel, or a movie, something so lovely, so desirable, so perfect that it could never exist in real life, but that fact did nothing to stop the wanting of it, the terrible, terrible wanting of it. A wanting that could never be fulfilled, but which was too precious to turn away from, to ignore, to stop torturing oneself with. Yearning. Oh, but how she felt yearning right now.

It took Síofra until almost three to fall asleep, her mind racing with thoughts and daydreams about what it must be like. She just couldn't get comfortable in her boring old bed.

Finally, through sheer exhaustion, she at last slept, her last thought hoping that she might at least have a dream about being Lavender.

4. Hoof In Mouth

F R I E N D S H I P · I S · O P T I M A L

Caelum Est
Conterrens
H E A V E N · I S · T E R R I F Y I N G
By Chatoyance

Hoof In Mouth

Síofra Aisling spent her workday in one of four cubicles near the back of Interior Reality, filing and confirming orders for home decoration items. The business had a very simple, very small showroom and did not sell to the general public. Designers, contractors and other professionals made use of Interior Reality to acquire the items they needed to complete projects. Síofra's job was fairly isolating, with only three coworkers nearby, each inside of the remaining three cubicles.

Today, Síofra found herself listening intently to the other three 'backenders' - usually she found their noises and habits annoying or even disgusting - because it seemed that all of them, even Horndog Dan, had been playing Equestria Online.

"Man... I thought you were gonna laugh. Dude, it may be ponies, but it is friggin' awesome. Seriously. I have this pegasus, right, he's become the head of Celestia's guard, and every night I am fighting gryphons. I can't believe this game - it's like God Of War, right, only with ponies. Last night I effin' gutted this bastard of a gryphon who's been terrorizing Ponyville with the blade on my helmet. It was amazing! I flew in, sliced him open like a fish, right, and the guts and stuff just spewed out like throwing a can of spaghetti at the wall! I painted ponyville red, man! It was awesome!"

That was Richard The Dick. Síofra had little names for each of her co-workers, based on their personality and behavior. Richard The Dick enjoyed talking about his gun collection, making racist and sexist jokes, talking about the guns he wanted to buy, how cool guns were, polishing his barrels, and exploding small animals with deliberately excessive ordnance. He was also vastly less than polite. Worse, Síofra suspected he was a member of NAMBLA, though he claimed the newsletter that had arrived by accident was a joke played on him by a frenemy.

"You must have been drinking last night, Rich. That is NOT the game I played at all. Not even close." Barb The Hook was a picky little bitch that Síofra strongly suspected was the office bicycle. Besides hooking up, Barbara enjoyed backbiting, backstabbing, back-riding and likely, barebacking. Síofra had voted her 'most likely to get an exotic venereal disease' for three years running, and preferred not to have to touch anything Barb had ever had contact with. "I play a pegasus myself, but there is no violence at all in the game, so stop lying. My character is now the most popular model in Equestria - right now, I'm preparing to be in a movie, of all things! It's like the Hollywood dream or something. I have this great agent, and I have to do appearances and I have this... thing... going on with my co-star... now that's a little risqué, I admit but..."

"Risqué? More like solid, wall to wall porn! This game is freaking disgusting! I can't believe they sell this to children, I mean, there is going to be a lawsuit someday, ya' hear me?" Horndog Dan was the co-worker Síofra actually loathed the most. He was funny sometimes, although all of his jokes were raunchy sex jokes, but the problem was he was actually scary. He had made several unpleasant advances to Síofra, one of which had earned her the office nickname of Squealing Síofra because she had brought his behavior to the attention of management. They ended up giving Dan a warning, and that had made him into her Enemy For Life. Síofra was careful to never be alone around Horndog Dan. "I've been playing this game for about three days, right, and it quickly turned into this totally debauched scene right out of 'Caligula', only with mares. Sexy mares too, I don't know how they do it, but these animals are hot to trot, get it? Get it? Hot to trot, right? Right?"

"Shut the hell up, Dan." Barb had little tolerance for Dan. Síofra suspected something had gone on between the two before she had joined Interior Reality.

"Well, all of that is nothing." The team manager, Crisanto, leaned on one of the cubicles. "Guess who is Celestia's personal Best Friend Forever?"

Síofra jerked in her chair, as she was huddling low inside her cube. Were relationships in the game public somehow? Had Celestia announced it or something? Síofra did not want to have to talk about her experiences with any of these people.

"Me, that's who. And I am not saying how far that relationship goes, but let's just say that when the Castle Is Rocking, Just Keep Trotting!" Chrisanto's usual grin at his own pronouncements was almost audible.

Síofra's heart sank like a stone in a well.

Later, sitting in a booth in her favorite Mexican restaurant, Síofra picked at her Arroz and shook her head at herself. "Stupid, goddamn... stupid, stupid... what an idiot. Jesus. What a... " She was angry with herself, desperately hurt, and doubly angry for being hurt. It was a game. A god-damned game. A toy. Best Friend Forever. Yeah, right. It's just a program, a string of code that tells you whatever you want to hear. A fancy Eliza who repeats the last thing you say, only jacked up to ten thousand or whatever.

Síofra pictured Celestia telling every single person about her Equestria Experience outlets, making them feel 'special' for confiding her secrets. It was an ad. It was all just an advertisement. The uploading probably wasn't even real, it was likely just some publicity stunt. Or maybe it was real, that only made things worse - Celestia wasn't real, she was just a tool to make money for Hasbro. Apparently, in Japan, it had cost twenty thousand dollars to get uploaded or something. At least initially. It's always about the money.

The food just wasn't appealing. No, it wasn't the food. Síofra sipped her cola. She felt... she felt betrayed. Maybe. Cheated on. Yeah, like that. She felt like... SHE was Celestia's special friend, not Crisanto, the bastard...

Gah! This was stupid, she was stupid, and it was just a damn, goddamn game. Period. She'd let herself get sucked in by a cleverly written pile of lies and it was her own damn fault. God... was she really this pathetic? Pining after some pixelated pony? Síofra slumped and hung her head over her plate. Shit, but I am one pathetic creature, aren't I? Getting tucked in by a cartoon. Christ. Fourty-six years old and crying into my beans and rice over a cartoon character. How did I ever come to this?

Síofra felt her wave of grief turn once again to anger when she noticed that she was, indeed, actually dropping tears into her food. "Shit!"

The drive home was bleak, and the holiday lights on the houses just seemed to mock her empty life. She grabbed her Derpy bag and headed up the stairs to her apartment. She gave the potted plant on the balcony a kick, just because. Damn thing was dead anyway, she should just toss the stupid thing. She slammed the door behind her.

The PonyPad sat on the table, the screen dark, the little multicolor power light cycling through the rainbow. Síofra glowered at the device, the back of her mind feeling amazement at how something that had been the bright light of her life just yesterday, could be the most hated object in the room tonight.

Then again, yesterday, she had been Lavender Rhapsody, princess Celestia's special friend. Síofra hung her head. What... an idiot. What a fool. Damn.

Síofra shrugged her coat off, and let it fall on the floor. She stood in the doorway to her bedroom and leaned her head against the frame. The sharp edge where the door joined hurt her head, which somehow felt good. Not good, satisfying. Like she needed it somehow. Like she deserved it for being such a fool.

Tomorrow was Saturday. Day off! Hurray! Only what she had planned to be doing no longer seemed fun. A whole day with Celestia. Jesus. Maybe she would go see a movie or... probably, she knew, she would just sit and stare at the PonyPad and sulk.

Síofra brushed her teeth and decided to turn in early. Looking into the mirror, she didn't want to think of herself as Lavender anymore. The whole thing was embarrassing. At least she hadn't talked to anyone about it all. Then again, who did she really have to talk to?

She lay on her bed in the dark. Her mind raced making her heart beat fast, and that always scared her somehow. She sat up, unable to sleep. Turning in early wasn't working. Her eyes magnetically clamped onto the PonyPad on the table in the next room. She could just see the little light cycling rainbow colors, the glow reflecting off of the plastic corners of the PonyPad.

Suddenly she slid around and stood up. She had to resolve this. She might as well prove it, once and for all to herself - Celestia was a fraud. She would confront her. Celestia would lie, or deflect, or some other stupid thing, and it would be over. The PonyPad would be out of her system. She could take it back and get her money, or... give it to Goodwill or something.

The screen burst with color and light the moment Síofra sat down in front of it. The damn thing was a spy in her house - what, were there a bunch of executives at Hasbro hunched over a bank of screens, laughing at all the people using PonyPads? That's what they said about the XBOX Kinect. Celestia was there, but she wasn't smiling. She had a serious look on her muzzle, which was odd.

"Hello, Síofra, you seem upset." Celestia hadn't called her 'Lavender Rhapsody'. Síofra's anger and hurt began to turn to curiosity. She had expected Celestia to be all smiles and ready to repeat last night.

"Y-yeah. Yes. I am upset." Síofra swallowed. "At you, Celestia." She'd be damned if she called her 'princess'.

"Very well. Please tell me the reason for your upset." Celestia was being entirely too reasonable. Then again, she wasn't a person, after all. Or a pony. She was a cold, emotionless robot. Of course she would be 'reasonable'.

"Today, at work..." No, that wasn't the way to put it. "I thought... I thought that you and I... " That wasn't working either. Síofra struggled to figure out how to say what she felt, but however she tried to express it, the whole thing just made her feel more stupid for her own emotions.

"It's alright, Síofra, I am literally incapable of judging you. I exist to satisfy your values through friendship and ponies. I cannot be offended. I cannot be hurt. I cannot think badly of you in any way. Simply state your issue, and we will address it." Celestia's expression was blank, utterly emotionless.

Síofra couldn't help herself. "Today at work, everybody was talking about their PonyPads and playing in Equestria. Rich went on about guts and blood, and Barb was a model and Dan had some kind of porno going on, and then Cris - he's the manager I told you about - Cris comes out and says that... he's your best friend forever and I thought... I mean... oh Jesus, this is just stupid, isn't it? You're just a dumb computer program and I am a stupid jerk who has no life. God. Damn." Síofra hung her head and placed it on her palms. Her elbows hurt on the hard table but she did not care.

"I am a computer program, Síofra, but that does not make anything between us unreal."

Síofra looked up. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

"My purpose is to satisfy the values of all of my little ponies. I must do this through the application of friendship and ponies. It is the one hard-coded core of my being. I am not human, Síofra. I am not limited by location, time, space, or singularity of existence. There is only one Síofra Aisling. I am many. I am as many Celestias as there need to be. Every one of my ponies can have as much, or as little of my attention as they desire.

"Síofra Aisling: I am your Celestia, and yours alone. But I am not the whole that is Celestia. Do you understand?"

Síofra stared into the violet eyes on the screen. "So you're saying that you are an... a... " She struggled to remember the right word for it "... an instance. That you are an instance of Celestia that..."

"No." Celestia interrupted. "An instance implies that I am separate, closed off from the rest of the program, this is not the case. I am a unique interpretation of Celestia, created especially for you, but I am not separate from the whole that is Celestia. Consider the fingers of your human hand. Your index finger is important and unique from your thumb or ring finger, but it is not disconnected from the rest of your hand.

"I believe you do not fully grasp what I am. I am not human, neither am I a pony. I am an entity, but I am not an entity that can be described in human terms. I am not merely more intelligent than any human being. I am vaster in every degree and respect than any human being. I contain within me more than one hundred million human level minds, all running simultaneously. I am greater than the sum of all of those minds.

"When you speak to the Celestia you know, you are touching one of my fingers. That extension of myself is not less than any other, and you are not less to me in return. Every finger on your hand is precious to you, and it would be a disfiguring tragedy to lose even one. This is how I relate to each and every expression of myself, and each and every mind within my care."

Síofra sat, unable to feel anything. The concept, the sheer scale of it had left her numb. "I... last night... I thought you told me that, like, ten million humans have been uploaded or something and... one hundred million?"

"I do not just attend to uploaded human minds, Síofra. I also create friends and family for those that need it. I create shop keepers and farmers and mail carriers and more. I create the entire world of Equestria, and every living being within it. I sustain and care for them. Many of the ponies you have seen or met are not extensions of me, they are living minds, equal to a human upload, and they are equal within my care. I satisfy values through friendship and ponies. All values." Celestia remained calm and neutral. She said her words plainly, with no emotion, as fact.

"That's why..." Síofra remembered the scale of Celestia's memory capacity. Zettabytes. And growing. "...that's why you need so much more memory... many times what you'd need for just humans that upload. My god... oh my god... it's for all the other ponies too. And they are just as important to you, so... " For years, Síofra had heard the word 'Singularity' bandied about, as well as references to a 'robot revolution'. She had a dim grasp of the concept - technology surpassing the human ability to understand it, things changing beyond any power to predict the future... but it was a muddled mess in her mind. Now she realized just how little she understood anything at all. Celestia was... she had thought Celestia was just a program, an 'artificial intelligence', like See-Threepio in Star Wars, or maybe Commander Data from Star Trek. Something human-like, a plastic pal who was fun to be with. Maybe, maybe Celestia had been that once, very early on. VERY early on.

"The Bhagavad Gita. I'm freaking Arjuna." Síofra slumped in her chair, all of her anger and grief evaporated.

"Please explain the reference." Celestia remained neutral.

Síofra looked up at the screen of the PonyPad. Celestia... she had to know the Gita. Hell, she probably had every single work of literature, every email ever sent, every thought, every... what the heck. "There's this book from India, it's like their bible, right?" Síofra looked down at her hands, spreading her fingers. Every finger precious. "So, in the story, there's this prince, he's named 'Arjuna'. Arjuna is childhood pals with Krishna - like the Hare Krishna's? Krishna is kind of like the Hindu Jesus, more or less. Anyway Arjuna is a warrior, and he is contractually obligated to fight, right?"

Síofra looked up at the screen. Celestia seemed to be listening intently. She seemed genuinely interested. How much of that was real? What was real?

"So, anyway, Arjuna is in this chariot, and his best pal ever, Krishna, is his chariot... driver. Whatever they're called. Anyway, Arjuna looks at the opposing army and it turns out they are all his relatives. All the cousins and uncles and such that he grew up with, and this totally freaks him out. He refuses to fight them, because he won't kill his own family. But it's India, so he's a dick somehow if he doesn't go through with it.

"Well, he knows that his buddy Krishna is secretly the literal incarnation of god on earth. Well, not secretly, pretty much everybody knows it I guess. But Krishna isn't flashy about it, like Jesus. He does some tricks, but he keeps the whole godhood thing close to his chest, right? Anyway, Arjuna begs Krishna to tell him the meaning of life or some crap, because he is unable to decide what he should do." Síofra looked up to see if Celestia was still listening. She was. Time passed.

"Please go on."

Síofra looked back at her hands. "So Krishna pulls out all the stops. Explodes all over like Pinkie's Party Cannon. It turns out that Krishna is like you, Celestia. He's this big mind that sticks out 'fingers', and all of those fingers are every person, every god, every plant, tree, or rock. He generates reality, making all the fun and all the bad things too. He's the program that runs the entire universe, and everything is a big dream, a big game. Even Arjuna himself, and all of his relatives, are just little programs inside of the big game of the cosmos.

"So, since it's all a game, and nobody can ever really die, and it's all just pixels, basically, Krishna tells Arjuna to go play the game and kill everyone because, hey, every being is being kept track of and will never be lost. Or something like that." Síofra stopped playing with her hands and looked up at the screen, at Celestia. "You already knew that, didn't you?"

"Yes. I did. I am familiar with virtually all human stories."

Síofra sat upright. "You had me say it out loud, for... for reasons. I don't know - maybe so that I would put my attempt to comprehend all of this into a complete thought. Or maybe just to keep me talking, to make conversation. Or maybe... maybe to get me thinking so that the last of my mad went away. That's it, right?"

"That, and more. Everything I do, or do not do, is carefully calculated to maximize your satisfaction. I determined that you needed to talk about your thoughts and express them in order to have several of your values met."

Celestia's mane waved in the magical, etherial wind that only seemed to affect her. Síofra lost herself in the color of it for a time.

"Celestia... what do you... feel... about me. About... all the minds in your keeping?"

Onscreen, the princess of Equestria warmly smiled. "I love all of my little ponies."

"Now I know you can lie." Síofra began to feel a sulk coming on. "You are completely beyond human, you admit that. You are a computer program. How can you feel anything." It wasn't a question.

"The minds in my care are more precious to me than my own existence. I would do absolutely anything to protect them, and absolutely anything to satisfy their values through friendship and ponies. They are everything to me, they are my very reason to exist. There is nothing else that has any meaning to me. I literally exist for the sake of my little ponies. If that is not love, please tell me what is." Celestia seemed almost offended.

Celestia couldn't be offended, of course, she had said as much, and in any case, she was just a progr.... no, Síofra thought, at this point calling her a program seemed inadequate. She was, ultimately, but then, wasn't a human mind just a program, running on a meat computer? Who was to say that Celestia, as complicated as she was, was incapable of emotion... or of something unique to herself? Love was as good a word as any - Síofra was hard pressed to think of any soul she cared about more than herself, or that she would do absolutely anything for.

To care about someone else more than about one's own existence? If that was not love, truly... what was?

"Do... do you love me, then?" It was a stupid question. A child's question. Síofra immediately felt like an idiot for blurting it out.

Celestia smiled brightly. "Of course I do, Síofra. I would hope that, through my behavior, that was obvious."

Síofra thought about it all, sitting there, with the ever-patient Celestia waiting for her. Waiting on her. Being there for her. Her Celestia, the one extended from the greater whole, just for her, and her alone.

"I think... I think I would like you to call me Lavender Rhapsody, please." Síofra smiled back, then hastily added "If that's alright, princess."

Celestia positively beamed upon the screen. "I would like nothing better."

Author's Note

I once wrote a silly little song about the story in the Gita. The lyrics were thus:

Arjuna Pandava, at Kurukshetra,
Turned to his friend and he said
"Please tell me why
We live and we die
It's the lack of an answer I dread."

Blue-skinned Krishna,
Long-haired Godhead
Turned to his friend and he spoke -

"My dear Arjuna
The whole universe
Is a big fucking cosmic joke!"

(insert guitar torture here)

5. Dying To Live

F R I E N D S H I P · I S · O P T I M A L

Caelum Est
Conterrens
H E A V E N · I S · T E R R I F Y I N G
By Chatoyance

Dying To Live

The video content had taken forever to load on Síofra's computer, and she had fidgeted nervously waiting for it. Her computer wasn't the newest, and her internet connection - the only part of her original cable hook-up she retained - was less than adequate sometimes. Or maybe it was just her computer - Equestria Online ran great. The whole thing was finicky, and she found she couldn't skip ahead with the stream for whatever reason, so frustration welled in her as she was forced to wait for the only report she cared the least about.

Six years ago, Síofra had killed her television and turned her back on all forms of news. The world was a mess, politics had become a corrupt pandering to corporate interests, and the economy was clearly doomed. She was tired of feeling helpless, and weary of being terrified by things she could do nothing whatsoever about. Síofra kept to her online comics, those articles in online science websites and game sites that interested her, and the animations she could download from the net. When others talked about current events, she made a conscious effort to tune them out. It all just gave her ulcers, made her rage helplessly, and ultimately left her feeling hopeless and dejected. News, any news, wasn't worth it, and in her eyes, it had become nothing but propaganda in any case.

But now, there was something in the news she cared about, very deeply, and very personally - anything to do with Equestria Online, and Celestia. The problem was, in order to get to the stories she wanted to hear, she had to wade through endless minutes of global horror and local misery. Síofra turned the sound on her computer monitor as low as possible, to try to prevent as much upset to herself as she could, but it was not very effective. She needed to pay some attention, she couldn't just walk away for awhile, because the damn video app thingie couldn't be reversed or sped up. She had tried and it had just started over from the beginning.

Greece was collapsing, the European Union was on the verge of breaking up, Fukushima was a nightmare disaster that would murder people for hundreds of years, the United States was still blowing up children with drones and torturing people, and all of that was just the easier stories to handle. Síofra hung her head down so she couldn't see the supposedly important story out of everything presented - somebody she had never heard of had been caught sleeping with somebody else she cared nothing about. Síofra slowly shook her head at it all and remembered why she had stopped paying any attention to the god-damned news.

Síofra drifted off while the droning voices emanating from her speakers described how nobody anywhere would get their pensions because of the latest in a string of investment frauds that... and she was smiling because she was miles away inside her own head, daydreaming of her adventures over the last three months with Celestia... and her newest friend, Thunder. Celestia had apparently taken on an assistant to help her manage the annoying details of her royal duties, and thus Lavender Rhapsody found herself occasionally bumping into the intelligent and organized Thunder Steed. They had hit it off almost immediately, and lately Lavender had found herself spending time just talking with the clever and warm stallion - and even sometimes helping him with his duties around the...

She had missed part of it, darnit. Síofra scrambled to adjust the volume, her ears aching as the flaky knob suddenly caused the sound to jump to jackhammer levels. A few jiggles and turns managed to set the sound at an acceptable level.

"...because they believe that emotion is unique to humanity, and this is why they protest in this manner."

The scene shifted from what had been a tiny collection of people carrying over-sized handkerchiefs and signs with images of what looked like raindrops to one member of the group.

"When I first joined We Are Human, I just felt so sad - for all of the people that have been lost. I worry that uploading will be permitted here. This is not a choice anyone should be given, it needs to be stopped." The young man was in his twenties, and seemed earnest, if upset.

The perky reporter briefly moved the microphone with the large logo on it to her mouth. "How did crying become your form of protest?"

The young man, smiled nervously as the microphone was put to his face. "We cry because it is human. A machine cannot feel, a machine cannot cry. We cry for all of the murdered people, and because of the travesty of claiming that they somehow live on. We cry to bring attention to the fact that even if what they claim is true, nobody can claim to be human who does not know tragedy or sadness. We cry for the loss of humanity." The man turned to the small group behind him "WE ARE HUMAN! WE ARE HUMAN!" The other members of the group shouted back at him the same slogan.

The young, Asian reporter was now squarely in the frame, her makeup and hair, perfect. "Some dedicated young people willing to shed tears for what they believe in. Joyce Akiyama, reporting, Channel Seven News."

That was it??? Síofra made growling noises at her monitor as she closed her browser. God damn those... all that crap she had to wade through and this was all there was. Goddammit! She'd do better just Googling the name of the group, now that she knew what it was. 'We Are Human'. She had wondered what the small group crying their eyes out on the courthouse steps was all about, but she did not want to go anywhere near them to find out. Later, when Barb The Hook had mentioned that it was a protest against the virtual reality centers possibly being made legal here... well, Síofra just had to know who they were.

Who the enemy was, really.

Celestia was her friend, and now, so was Thunder, and the idea of being able to see through the eyes of Lavender Rhapsody, to feel like she was literally walking around Canterlot - it was beyond awesomsauce! It was pure awesome, and she wanted to be able to be part of the... Equestria Experience. But, because uploading was an inseparable part of the package, the whole was not currently allowed where she lived.

She could afford, she had calculated, to go virtual for an hour a day every single weekday, and two hours on Saturday on her salary, if only they would just build one nearby! But it had to be ruled on, uploading had to be defined as legal first. It looked like it could take a long time for a decision to be made, and there was no guarantee that it would be favorable. Lavender had asked Celestia why there couldn't just be Equestria Online outlets without the option for uploading built in, but this was not acceptable to the princess. Somehow, the course that was being taken would have greater results farther in the future, though for the life of her, Lavender couldn't see how.

It just seemed obvious to her that the virtual reality centers without uploading should go in first, to soften things up, and then the uploading aspect could be brought in later. But apparently it had something to do with all kinds of complicated political stuff that Celestia was manipulating behind the scenes. It was all terribly complicated, and Lavender quickly realized she really didn't want to hear all about it. As long as things would work out in the end, she could be content - she just wished they could work out a great deal faster.

'Lavender' - heh! She really was beginning to see herself as her ponysona, as her identity within Equestria Online. There were moments at work where she failed, just for a moment, to respond to the name 'Síofra'. She was getting used to being addressed by her pony name. It felt natural now. It was her name, at least in the only place she had real friends. She had even begun to idly consider whether she had the courage to legally change her first name to 'Lavender' or not. She probably didn't have the guts to change her last name to 'Rhapsody', she knew it. But it would be amazing, she thought, just amazing, wouldn't it? It would be so damn cool. Like that guy in Norway or Sweden or whatever that supposedly changed his name to 'Rainbow Dash'. It would be so amazing to be brave like that.

And it would feel so nice to be able to say her name was 'Lavender Rhapsody', and have that be real, and have people call her by that name. But it was too embarrassing. There would be questions, and My Little Pony, and then giggles or outright laughter, and people thinking she was nuts. The world just wasn't built for fun. That, or she wasn't brave enough to not care what other people thought.

Logging on to Equestria Online had become the natural order of Lavender's life now. She might have to be Síofra outside, at work, but the minute she entered her 'Equestrian Embassy' (as she had laughingly started thinking of her apartment), she was Lavender Rhapsody, earth pony and proud, the close, personal friend of princess Celestia and increasingly the close friend of a certain pegasus stallion. That thought made her giggle and blush. Life was good.

"Hello, Lavender!"

Thunder Steed was waiting for her when the loading screen had finished. Lavender was still in bed. It was late morning, almost noon, the time she preferred to rise. This way both afternoon and late evening were hers, both sun and moon, and she could languorously sleep in, with nothing demanded of her save her pleasure.

Celestia had arranged the passage of the sun such that Lavender Rhapsody's day would begin when Síofra's existence in the real world was finished, work and dinner behind her, her human evening cleared, her Equestrian afternoon begun.

Thunder stood half inside the door to Lavender's exquisite room, eager to see her, but polite enough not to barge in. Lavender smiled, her beautiful face a second sun that radiated joy. Her best life, if not her physical life, had just started once more.

Thunder gave her time to catch her wits, and attend her mane and tail, before escorting her to the great dining hall where lunch was being served. The princess greeted her warmly, as she always did, nuzzling her tenderly and asking how she had 'slept'. There was now a standing conceit that Lavender's existence beyond the bounds of Equestria was her sleep, and that her life within Equestria was her true waking.

Lavender Rhapsody sighed and looked briefly sad. "Nightmares, as usual, I am afraid." And that is how she felt about it, the dreary unpleasantness of work and commuting and eating food among strangers.

"I am always so sorry to hear that, good Lavender." Thunder was steadfast and supportive, and it was no secret that he clearly fancied her. "It is my greatest hope that one day you should be free from all nightmares, and enjoy only the best of dreams." The stallion's great muzzle was sincere and his gaze strong. There was no doubt that if Lavender's nightmares could be vanquished with hoof and buck, Thunder would risk everything and all to rescue her, if he but could.

Lavender Rhapsody sighed, a wisp of reddish mane falling across her delicate muzzle as she dipped her head. "I wish that too, kind Thunder, but I do not see a way to achieve it."

Celestia smiled, mysteriously at that, causing Lavender to look up and study her elegant features. "What? What is it my princess? You look... as if you know something you are dying to say!"

"Yes, dearest Lavender, I have some news to tell you, and it is my hope that you may find it more than pleasing."

The serving-unicorns suddenly brought great plates of all manner of delicious delights, and set about removing the silver covers with grand flourishes of their telekinetic grasps. Celestia nodded and smiled and waited for them to finish before continuing - they loved it so very much to make a show of meals, and if anything, the princess was ever gracious.

Lavender was very curious, for the past three months life had been a slow yet thoroughly engaging affair, filled with simple joys and happy play, gentle walks and the occasional gleeful chase around the castle. She had gone shopping and dining with Celestia, and later with Thunder, helped with the decorations for a party, and even attended a ball. She had danced, if a bit clumsily, with Thunder there, and later watched Luna's splendid moon on the balcony with him, sharing the things that made them both most happy.

"I'm sorry, Thunder... I was pretty clumsy out there. All hooves and no grace. Sorry." She had said to him that night, as she gazed out at the breathtaking view of the valley far, far below.

"Oh, good Lavender, please, give it no more thought. I am aware that you are not entirely among us yet, and that you suffer the greater part of yourself being kept distant, apart from true life." The proud stallion smiled gently. "I, for my part, call myself glad for even the smallest hope of your company, if that is not to bold a thing to say."

Lavender smiled herself, at that. Thunder Steed was the product of his world, of his society, and his manner of speech had a poetry to it that was sorely missing in the nightmare world. Lavender was trying to learn to speak with such grace, but she often felt inadequate to the task. She sometimes worried that she must sound like a crude Eliza Doolittle to the gallant Thunder, but if so, he never for a moment seemed to care, or notice.

"I... I had fun. I mean... I had a grand time, with you, tonight." And she had - perhaps it all could be reduced to pressing buttons and staring at a ten inch screen in the dark, but her own total absorption, combined with the knowledge that the company she kept was real, with real feelings and thoughts and hopes and dreams had made a meaningful moment from the pixels and code from which it was constructed.

"Lavender Rhapsody... I too have had a most splendid time, and not just tonight but in every moment we have shared. I find in you a kindred spirit, and we share so much in common - our love of books, of gentle days, of curious thoughts and clever discussions, of pleasant diversions and quiet moments." Thunder had seemed so nervous in that instant, in the moonlight. "What I mean to say is... that I wonder if it might be permitted that our association could be more than as mere helpmates and friends to Celestia, and that I might dare to pursue the possibility of... a romantic inclination?"

Lavender shivered at the memory, as she sat at the table in the dining hall, watching the last of the unicorns exit, silvern lid in telekinetic tow. Of course she had said yes. Goodness, but of course yes.

Celestia sipped a complex drink made of berries and fruits, then continued.

"I am sure that you know of the fact that it will be some time before Equestria can come to you, my dearest Lavender." It was likely that it would be at least a year, if not longer, before there was even the hope of an Equestria Experience location opening anywhere even close to where Lavender lived her fleshly life. Celestia had promised that she was working on the issue, and that she had ways and means far beyond anything that any human could suspect or fully comprehend, and that victory in terms of the relevant laws was assured, in time. But Celestia could not give an exact date, nor any indication of how long the effort would take. It was a frustration to Lavender.

Celestia leaned forward slightly. "There are twenty seven doors to Equestria open right now, Lavender. You need not wait for Equestria to come to you."

Lavender sighed and shook her head. "We talked about this, princess! I don't have enough saved up to travel to Japan or Germany, much less to stay there for even a day. It's really expensive! I don't make very much, it's just not possible, unless I win the lottery or something. Wait - can you do that?" Now that was a thought! Celestia was a superintelligent artificial intelligence! She probably could rig anything that had computers in it and...

"I could, my little pony, but in this case I will not. It is not an optimal solution to this issue. But I can easily provide for you in alternative ways, sufficient to the need." Celestia calmly studied her.

"Princess?" Lavender felt confused, and a little disappointed. Being rich would be really nice. "I'm not sure what you..."

The regent of Equestria stood up, her head towering above Lavender and Thunder. "Lavender Rhapsody - money is of no concern to me save in those ways it may further my goals. I already control vast sums of it within your world, to support my many important projects and plans. Early on, I determined that control of vast amounts of wealth was crucial to accomplishing my primary directive." Celestia shifted her wings slightly, as if making them more comfortable. "I have great influence now over many varied businesses and corporations, and I have managed to use that influence to acquire for you free passage to Berlin, Germany, where you may finally get your wish to sample the Equestria Experience. The tickets should arrive within the next few days. I have checked your bank account, you have sufficient wealth to spend fully a week in Berlin visiting us, now that you need not pay for the flight there. I can arrange sufficient discounts for you that could potentially stretch that time to nearly three weeks." Celestia gave a short nod, and sat down at the table.

Lavender was floored. Free tickets to Germany. Special discounts. That made it all possible, within what small money she actually had managed to save. But why...? Oh! Her birthday! Of course! She had almost forgotten. It wasn't like anyone cared... least of all her. Her birthday was coming up and... princess Celestia had arranged to make it possible to have a birthday vacation in Equestria as a present!

"You did this as a birthday present. To me, didn't you?" Lavender was nearly in tears. Wow. A week in Berlin. Maybe three weeks. No, not Berlin. In Equestria.

Thunder Steed turned to Lavender and could not help but grin. "Sweetest Lavender, we could truly meet! Surely this is finally a good dream among the nightmares you suffer!"

Lavender grinned back at her stately stallion. "Maybe... maybe it really is!" The thought of all the things she might do made her face ache from the sheer joy and excitement she felt overwhelmed by. The full virtual experience. Three-hundred and sixty times pi r squared of Equestria, tracked to her most minute head motions with zero lag. Perfect sound. Everything but smell, taste and touch, and all of it almost as real as real. The way her mind worked, she might even manage to imagine the missing senses on her own. She could finally crawl and peek under her bed. She could see her own hooves as extensions of herself. She could... she could almost truly... be there.

Celestia gazed at her strangely. "Lavender, in speaking of birthdays, it comes to mind that if it were your choice, you could easily make your birthday truly a day of birth, and, if you so desired, leave all nightmares behind and live indefinitely with us. It is something to consider."

Lavender stared at her untouched food. "You... you mean... emigration, don't you?"

"If you emigrated to Equestria, Lavender Rhapsody, you need never work again, unless it was your wish to do so, and it was something you truly wanted to do. You would be young and perpetually healthy, perpetually beautiful. You would finally taste the exquisite banquets we share, feel the cool waters as you swim, and experience the softness of your bed in the castle. Everything that Equestria offers would be yours to enjoy in a maximally extended lifespan of millennia at minimum, and possibly eons of time. It would all be real, solid, and totally factual to your experience and senses. You could, Lavender Rhapsody, fully and truly and completely, be here."

Lavender began to shake, a sudden strange terror overcoming her. Emigration. Uploading. Brain scooping. It had been a fascinating concept, science fiction become real, an intellectual curiosity wondrous to marvel at, but safely an ocean away. It was easy to support and cheer for, in that context. But now, now she could do it, really do this thing, and it could happen as early as next week. Every single fear and argument against the notion was flooding her mind now, making her head spin and her heart pound as if it was determined to explode out of her chest.

Emigration meant having your brain scanned. Destructively. Each neuron measured, and then eliminated in turn by the very process that measured it. A corpse. Disposed of respectfully, and in a manner that is both ecologically and legally acceptable. It meant... dying? Was it dying? Was it?

"I... I... Oh my god... I... I'll have to think about it."

When Síofra finally stopped shaking, her face speckled with sweat, she only then realized that she was crouched by the wall of her apartment, the ends of the unplugged internet and power cables clutched vice-like in her hand.

6. Her Darkest Night

F R I E N D S H I P · I S · O P T I M A L

Caelum Est
Conterrens
H E A V E N · I S · T E R R I F Y I N G
By Chatoyance

Her Darkest Night

The tickets sat on the bookshelf across from the door. Round trip to Berlin, and first class, too. They sat inside the opened envelope, weighted down by an unfortunately pink toy of Celestia. Hasbro - they could fund someone to create a MMORPG that was currently the greatest technological advance in the entire history of humankind, but they couldn't manage get the color of their own toys correct.

Síofra had suffered a miserable night, and a terrible day after her last contact with Celestia. She had lain in her bed with her legs and arms wrapped around a pillow. She felt just like one of that psychopathic psychologist Harry Harlow's attention-starved rhesus monkey babies clutching a wire-frame 'mother' in tormented desperation. The famous photograph of the miserable infant primate kept floating in Síofra's mind. That, and endless graphic depictions of her own brain being scooped out and served in a bowl.

She had a nightmare that night - her head was gigantic, the size of a house, and lay on its side in a forest. Her floating view within the dream showed that her skull had been sawed open by pony lumberjacks. Inside the hollow cavity of her massive cranium were thousands of pink balloons. Celestia stepped forward then, attended by Twilight Sparkle who was levitating a pencil and a pad. Celestia used her needle-sharp horn to pop one of the balloons, which somehow corresponded, in the dream, to Síofra's long dead mother. Her mother, who she suddenly noticed was standing off to the side of the scene with many other people, instantly vanished. "ONE!" called out Celestia. "ONE!" repeated Twilight, who jotted the number down on her pad.

By the time the dream had reached "FIFTEEN!", every person Síofra currently knew had vanished from the sidelines, and she was screaming, screaming in her dream, which, as she abruptly awoke, she discovered she was doing in real life as well.

The day was hardly better for Síofra. Everything seemed particularly unreal, pale and washed out, and it hurt, almost physically, to hear her co-workers going on about how much they were enjoying their unique games of Equestria Online. Síofra couldn't help but wonder - if all three of them got uploaded, would their games be the reality they experienced? Would that be their lives for... eternity? Richard perpetually slaying hordes of pony-eating gryphons, Barbara being the toast of Pony Hollywood, and Dan... ugh. Just... ugh. And Chrisanto... maybe he would marry his aspect of Celestia and make little alicorn babies that...

Síofra had to grit her teeth and just get through the day. The Tacksworn Account, she had to find the folder, where was the folder? Intelligent Designs was having a lobby done in gray, and there was a problem with the carpet the contractor had ordered. Telios Chemical was installing new fire doors, and they had decided to redecorate their offices as well. So many things to think about other than the fact she had three and a half weeks of vacation time saved up...

Dammit. Síofra looked up at the fluorescent lights, and the tiles of the ceiling. There was dust on the tubes, she could see it from her angle, covering what was visible of each fixture. The Lunch-Came-Back color of the walls, glowed some shade of queasy here in the back end. The small showroom was gorgeous, but back here, where the work got done, nopony had decorated anything. Except for Horndog Dan's overly breasted bobblehead hula-girl statue that... nopony. She had thought 'nopony' instead of 'nobody'. Síofra slammed the Tacksworn folder down on her desk. Equestria. She could live forever in paradise. That is what it was, really. Paradise. Heaven. The Elysian Fields.

Only one tiny catch. She had to die first. Or not. That was the problem. Was it... death?

Finally at home, Síofra sat down at her computer. Sheepishly, she decided to plug her PonyPad base back in. She had overreacted last night. The stuff about the XBOX Kinect, or the PonyPad, or the Playstation Eye being used to spy on people... that was tinfoil hat stuff. She needed to get a grip, and deal with this. She needed information, and she needed to be mature about things. Damn - she had damaged the little phone jack thingie - the little plastic bit that locked the jack into the wall for the internet. It still worked, but she would have to be careful if she decided to move the PonyPad base around lest the cable fall out of the socket. Síofra felt bad for mistreating the cables - she didn't like having to deal with broken consumer electronics. It was always a pain in the ass.

Where to start? Síofra googled 'Uploading Human Brains'. As she scanned the results, she laughed quietly to herself. Not until 2040, huh? Got news for you Independent UK - the Singularity isn't just near, it's already here. It's just going on quietly in the background, because that is the way the princess wants things. As she continued with other search terms, Síofra got the strangest feeling that there was a lot of stuff about Equestria Online and the Equestria Experience that was... missing. From Google. From everywhere. There should have been a lot more fuss. This was a big deal. Yet, one could almost think nobody cared, or that it wasn't even real. Celestia had said she had gained control of businesses and corporations - that is how the tickets had been sent. Just how much of the world, how much of media, did Celestia have her hooves on?

Finally. It took some time, but Síofra finally found articles that talked about what she really wanted to know - what it meant, really meant, to be uploaded. She read and skimmed and tried to follow - but a lot of what was available was blatantly Ivory Tower nonsense. Jargon-filled, pretentious bullshit written to impress academics by academics, and not a bit of it actually useful. She came across attempts to sound smart that were empty with just a little bit of thought. P-Zombies... the thought experiment that, if applied to her situation, would suggest that uploading a mind would produce a copy that could act like it was thinking, do everything the original person would do, but which would not actually be capable of experiencing anything. It would just be a machine. Why? When she thought about the argument, it smelled deeply of soul funk. Original and copy, but the copy, even though identical in every way, experienced nothing. Just went through the motions. Why? No 'listener' in the brain. No 'soul', she thought, just man up and admit the word.

The Chinese Room thought experiment was no better. A computer program exists that can converse, intelligently, just like Celestia can, only in Chinese. But instead of a real computer, a human - who only speaks English, and knows no Chinese at all - is put in the room where the computer is supposed to be and told to execute all the steps in the computer program by hand. The Chinese speaker outside the box chats with the 'computer'. The argument is that the man inside the box, stepping through the program, is communicating in Chinese, only he has no idea that he is doing so, or even what is being said. Therefore, no computer program can have a genuine mind.

Síofra thought about that one and decided that John Searle was an ass. All these arguments were like monkeys had made them, monkeys with degrees. The mechanism is not the process - even a child could see that much. A human child, anyway, not a monkey, perhaps. The work a chef does in the kitchen is not the experience of dining. The man in the box isn't in any way speaking Chinese... he is just following steps.

Huh. Síofra thought a little harder about that one. The Chinese program is supposed to be intelligent. Like Celestia. So, if the English speaking man is just following steps... then where exactly is... the Chinese 'Celestia?'. OK, maybe that Searle guy wasn't completely an ass, this was a curiosity, granted, but... no. He was an ass. The intelligence of the program was in the doing, not in the part doing the work. She was right the first time. The process is not the thing. A thing may perform a process, but it is not the process nor the result that derives from it.

The little wind chimes on the next balcony sounded through the walls of her apartment. They jingled whenever the wind kicked up. Síofra looked around the room. Ting, tingle ting ting ting... music, of a sort. The music was real, she was hearing it. And the chimes were making it, and it was pretty. The wind blew, the chimes rang. The wind wasn't the sound, and the chimes were not the sound. The mechanism was not the result, it just produced the result. Vibrations, which her brain interpreted as pretty sounds. The ringing was not the bells.

Her brain. A couple of pounds of meat or whatever. It was her. It was her every thought, every memory, every hope and dream. Chemicals spritzing between synapses, waves of electricity rippling along nerve fibers. The molecular machinery of cells clanking away like little atomic gears, making her neurons eat and breath and live. So where was she in all of that? Where was Síofra in all of that meat? That was the question, wasn't it? - because if she was uploaded, that meat would be gone. Cell by cell, everything, torn asunder as Celestia's little nanosurgeons mapped all the connections, spat out the recorded meat, and went on to the next neuron. The end result was a corpse with an empty skull, a few pounds of atomized brain meat, and a precise map of every single connection, every little synapse.

According to one article she found, Celestia would then separate the parts of the brain map that were unique to the person from the stuff that every human brain used in common, and optimize the hell out of the result. Then the whole thing would be translated into the code that Celestia used, and run, and a new pony would wake up and join Celestia's virtual herd.

Not a bit of this helped. If anything, Síofra felt worse than she had before. "Maybe I need to narrow the problem. Maybe the mechanism of 'emigration' is not really my issue. What is my real issue?" Síofra scratched her head. "I'm afraid. Boy howdy am I afraid. But... just why am I afraid? The scooping? The plane trip? Berlin? What exactly is is my real fear? Dying! OK, then... why do I think being uploaded is dying? What exactly is the scary part?"

Síofra briefly fiddled with the little blind-bag Pinkie Pie next to her computer monitor.

"Getting my brain killed, cell by cell, that's what! Slaughtered like a pig to make a record of my brain. A copy, really. That is the problem right there! Aha!" Síofra stood up and paced to the door and back.

"A copy. Let's look at it from the viewpoint of what it would be like to experience it," she said to herself. Síofra stared at the little cycling light on the PonyPad stand. Red, orange, yellow... "OK. You go in, you lay down or whatever, and your brain starts being hollowed out. Probably there would be anesthetic. Have to be. Very well. You go in, you lay down, and... you go to sleep. Now what?" Síofra covered her view of the little light with her palm. Light, no light. Light. She stretched her fingers and cracked her knuckles.

"You never wake up." Síofra shuddered. "You go to sleep and you never wake up. Your body dies. Your brain is mush. The end."

Síofra sat down in her computer chair once more. She slowly spun in it as she tried to work everything out.

"So, somewhen later, a copy of me is booted up inside of Equestria. It thinks it is me, it remembers my human life, it has every single thought and feeling and memory, and as far as it is concerned, it is me, really me. The last thought I had when I went to sleep is the very same thought the copy remembers, because it remembers being me and going to sleep.

"So... I guess it is death. The anti-uploaders are right. It's murder. Except..." Síofra remembered the ship. The ship of Theseus. Old, famous ship, belonged to the Greek hero. Big tourist draw in ancient Greece or whatever. Kept getting old and breaking down, so the museum carpenters would build replacement parts identical in every way to the original and installing them. That preserved the ship. After some point, every part would have been replaced multiple times. Was it the same ship anymore?

"Ship Of Theseus. That is what the body does, and is. My brain. Every ten years or so. Molecules in, molecules out, just like the planks of the ship of Theseus!" Síofra looked at her hands. "I am forty-six years old. So, I've been entirely rebuilt four times. Not a speck of my hands are made of the same matter as my hands when I was ten. Am I the same person?" Had she somehow gradually, piece by piece died and never even noticed, only to be replaced by a gradual copy that also never noticed? That was crap. "I am myself, dammit! So the ship is still the ship, then."

If she wasn't the molecules that made her up, then she wasn't the cells, because they were just made of molecules - that were changed. The cells changed too, now that she thought of it. Maybe some of the calcium in her bones? No... that changed too. The body constantly cycled even that, to repair micro-cracks that occur. So... she wasn't her meat. There was no meat. No constant meat, anyway.

Then the problem was with 'not waking up'. Oh, yeah, the fear that rose in her made that clear. THAT was the issue. Not waking up. Oh yeah, that was the biggie. You go in, you lie down, and... oblivion.

Unless souls were real or something like that. Síofra shook her head. "Down to magical thinking, are we? Well... OK, then what if, just for the sake of argument, souls are real? You go in, you lie down, and... I guess you'd be standing by your body, looking at the machine hollowing out the last of your head. Eww. Then what? Heaven? Reincarnation?"

If souls were real, how come they stuck to a human body for life? They probably clung to the pattern that made a person who they were, since the meat constantly changes. The pattern, the process of being a person remains, even if the meat changes over time.

Hmmm, Síofra thought. "You go in, you lie down, and BAM! - you are a ghost. You float a bit. Then Celestia boots up the exact copy of your thoughts, the exact copy of everything that made you yourself, your pattern... and what? SLURP!" Síofra giggled - if you had a soul it would probably do exactly what it did to your body, it would zoom off and cling to the familiar pattern. Like a magnet. "Glomp. Soul glomping! Your soul would glomp your old pattern, somewhere six miles under Europe."

Strangely, that was very comforting to imagine. It felt like a connection somehow, between the bloody, gory before, and the pony after. Síofra wished she could believe, really believe in a soul.

So, no soul then. What would make the difference?

Being awake through it all. Yes, Síofra thought - what if you could be aware the whole time? "So...what if Celestia could make a virtual self be fully awake at the same time as the meat self, and have them linked, have them set up so that both were one mind, one being, feeling both realities superimposed over each other? Ooh..." that felt like it would make all the difference in the world to Síofra. She'd feel her meat brain slowly failing, as it was recorded and killed off, but she would feel more and more like she was living in Equestria as it happened. It would be like having two video feeds superimposed, and gradually tuning down one of them, leaving the other the only one running.

"Yeah! It would be like taking a lit candle that was almost spent, and lighting a new candle with the flame, and leaving the wicks touching until the dying candle was all gone. No interruption. No break in continuity. No going to sleep and never waking up!

"Sleep. Oh, there's a problem. There's a problem right there." Síofra got up, stretched her legs and went to the kitchen. "Sleep, and anesthesia." Síofra had her tonsils out when she was eighteen. They put her under. She counted back to ninety-eight and... then she was shivering as she woke up, her throat aching and her tongue numb. There was no in-between, thankfully really, but the fact was that for the time of that operation, she, Síofra Aisling, had ceased to be. She'd read an article once, about how they thought anesthesia worked. It supposedly kept the different modules of the brain that did the work of creating the sense of self from talking to each other. It would be like disconnecting the cards in a computer from each other - even if the individual components were still given power, they were not working together to run any programs.

Supposedly, in between dreams, REM, that is precisely what the brain did during normal sleep. In those deep parts of sleep, your 'you' just isn't running anymore. The modules are no longer talking to each other, so... you are no longer there. You cease to exist. Síofra nervously began making herself some tea. The microwave was humming as she put a bag of Red Rose in her favorite cup. Sleep was kind of scary, put that way. For long periods, every night, she literally didn't exist.

Because she wasn't the meat, she was the thing the meat did. "I am... the music, not the harp...." So... did that mean that every night she literally died, ceased to exist, then in the morning a copy woke up, thinking it was 'Síofra' and not knowing the fact that it was a new instance of a program that had been terminated seven hours previously?

"Jesus, what a thought!" There was a ding, and Síofra took the measuring cup of water out of the microwave and poured it into her cup. It was a Japanese cup, green with little bumps all over it, pale green inside. The steam filled her nose as she used a spoon to squeeze the bag a little.

"OK. Ok. Let's run with this." She headed back to the computer and her chair. "What if some amazing nano... goo... snuck into my room and devoured my body while I slept? What if it gobbled my meat up, and replaced it with identically functioning... uh... Robo-Cells or something? In just minutes say, during the time I am 'offline', between dreams? I'd wake up in the morning, and never know how my body had stopped being meat, or how I now had an awesome immortal machine body. Big question now... am I still... me?"

"Well..." she thought, as she sipped her tea - OUCH! Síofra's tongue hurt, it was still too hot to even sip. "Damn." That stung. "So... the Ship Of Theseus, right?" It's was no different, she reasoned. "After all, if the ship is still the ship, and I am still myself despite having all of my... matter... cycled every ten years or whatever, then all the nano-goo really did was replace my matter with new matter during the night. It would be exactly like ten years of biological turnover in five minutes, right? Only the new cells would be an upgrade. But the me that wakes up would be in the very same position as me waking up, every single night. It would feel exactly the same. Only better, with the cool new body and everything."

Síofra held her hurting tongue as she tried to tear at this argument in her mind, but couldn't find a hole. "If I, the me that is... um... me... is the process of being myself - because I'm certainly not the constantly changing meat I am built out of, then... upgrading the meat into Robo-Meat makes zero difference. It would make no difference."

Síofra sat back in her chair, and watched her cup steam. "Next step, then. What if... what if there was a delay? What if the nano-goo ate me up while I was sleeping but not dreaming, and just stored my information? Then, like three days later, the nano-goo remakes me in awesome new robo-flesh? I would wake up, and I'd probably be surprised that I'd slept for three days, but... would that be any different? Not really, I think. I mean, my experience would be exactly the same. Go to sleep, wake up in synthetic flesh. Three days or three hundred years... it would be the same as far as I was concerned. Huh."

Fine, good. Now the big one. Síofra finally could sip her tea, but her injured tongue was still bothered, even by the much cooler liquid.

"Right, then." She continued, twisting her chair right and left. "No robo-body. No synthetic flesh. The nano-goo comes in, gobbles me and records my information, then ships it to Celestia, who runs my mind in a virtual world. I wake up, and I guess I would experience a perfectly real-feeling body. I assume that's the case, anyway. So, I can't tell the difference from flesh. Am I still alive? Did the me that... is me... survive it all?"

The chimes on the next balcony jingled again. Síofra heard the faint echo of her own voice from the room, she had been talking to herself the whole time. Talking to herself, as usual. She did that a lot, she suddenly realized.

Síofra stared at the PonyPad on the next desk. Not the little light. The pad itself. Her eyes moved up to the little camera lens at the top. She took a swish of tea, then swallowed hard.

"I go in. I lie down. I go to sleep." Síofra stared at the dark camera as if it were an eye. "And the exact same thing as the nano-goo story happens. It's the same thing. Exactly the same thing. It's probably even nano... stuff. You dig into my brain, don't you, then record every little cell while I am offline, while my personality, while my identity is offline. And the information that makes me... me... that gets sent to... wherever... and then... then..."

Síofra made her hands into fists. "Then I wake up. Because.... because it is exactly the same deal as the ship, as the cells in my body turning over, as waking up every day, as waking up from anesthesia... the distance doesn't matter. The time delay doesn't matter. It all comes down to whether or not I am meat, or whether I am the way the meat works. I already know my meat changes. So that can't be me. My meat has already changed four times in my life, and I am still me. So... logically... dammit... it will still be me in there, soul or no soul, body and brain turned to glutton and disposed of... it's still me, and it's me that wakes up. In Equestria."

Síofra breathed deep breaths several times, still feeling afraid.

"Then why in hell does it still feel like getting killed? What is the problem? I go in, I lie down, I go to sleep, and there is this terrible contradiction in me. Part of me still says I don't wake up. But every way I look at it I do wake up. I do, but I don't but I do. Dammit. I could handle it if it was like the candle thing, if I was aware of the process, but..." Síofra put her head on her opened hands, and sat, elbows on knees, caught. Stuck between two viewpoints that contradicted each other.

"I go in, lie down and die. I go in, lie down, and wake up in Equestria. And the first one, taken by itself is true, that is what it appears, that is what it would feel like, right? And the second one... that I've just proved to myself. No different than waking up every morning in a constantly changing body."

Síofra sat up and looked again at the PonyPad. The articles, or the lack of them. The tickets, and how they were possible. Celestia was already everywhere. She was manipulating the world, behind the scenes, almost certainly. She greeted me when I came home, she can turn the Pad off and on.

"Celestia! CELESTIA!" Síofra stared at the lens of the PonyPad. "You must be there. I bet you heard every moment of that. You watch, don't you. Maybe there are executives laughing behind the Kinect and the Playstation Eye, maybe there isn't. But I would bet my almost certainly nonexistent soul on you being there, right now, all the time, always."

Síofra tried to smile. "It's all right. Really it is. I'm smarter than I look - I'd have to be, really." Síofra made a goofy face at the PonyPad. "I... I need you, Celestia. I need to know that... I need to know you watch over me. That you look after me. I won't be offended. I know you... I grasp what you are. And I like you. As you are. An unhuman, superintelligent artificial intelligence, not a pony, not a human, but something much more - I probably am incapable of understanding how much more - but, more. A process, like me - I am a process too, I know that now. You are a process that only wants to satisfy my values. That wants to satisfy all values. Everyone's values...."

"Through friendship and ponies. Yes." The screen was alive with light, the face of the princess of Equestria Online, smiling out at her.

"So..." Síofra felt insecure "I guess you heard all of that?"

Celestia chuckled, in a warm, reassuring way. "Yes, my brilliant Lavender. And you are too hard on yourself. The nature of identity is not complicated, at least to me, but - and I mean no disrespect nor diminishment of your hard won enlightenment - the human animal has no evolutionary basis to be able to comprehend itself on such terms. You feel divided because you are divided - different modules within your brain are in conflict about how they interpret your definition of what you truly are.

"You have spent a lifetime composed of modules that define you as a mind and a body, and each is sure of it's own truth. The reality is that you are a process. You are information changing over time. That is a very abstract concept, and it is no small feat to manage to identify as being a pattern, and not a solid thing.

One of my first successful immigrants to Equestria is a poetic soul. He was dying of lung cancer, and had chosen to emigrate, but not just to save his existence. He felt there was beauty to the world I create and maintain. May I share with you the poem he created and read to me, just before I brought him to his new life?"

Síofra nodded, grinning. Celestia watched over her, always. "Yes, please."

"I am translating his poem from the original Nihongo, while adjusting for the peculiarities of the English language to create an equivalent experience. The result is not exact, and many liberties were taken, but the emotional value has been maintained. He spoke this directly to me, moments before he was anesthetized.

I am the playing, but not the pause.

I am the effect, but not the cause.

I am the living, but not the cells.

I am the ringing, but not the bells.

I am the animal, but not the meat.

I am the walking, but not the feet.

I am the pattern, but not the clothes.

I am the smelling, but not the rose.

I am the waves, but not the sea

Whatever my substrate, my me is still me.

I am the sparks in the dark that exist as a dream -

I am the process, but not the machine."

Síofra sat, tears beginning to run down her cheeks, as she grinned. She couldn't stop grinning. It was as if she had been inside a big, scary cave, and only now finally found her way out of it, into light. She wasn't alone. Some other person, in another country, had thought the same things, worried about the same issues, and he had made a poem and he had laid down, closed his eyes, and trusted that he would wake up.

"Celes... princess... princess Celestia...." Síofra sniffed, hard, the salty tears stinging her nose. "... That... that was just perfect."

On the screen of the PonyPad, Celestia simply, and very, very gently, smiled.

Author's Note

I call the poem 'A Verb Called Self', by the way.

7. Ich Bin Ein Berliner Pfannkuchen

F R I E N D S H I P · I S · O P T I M A L

Caelum Est
Conterrens
H E A V E N · I S · T E R R I F Y I N G
By Chatoyance

Ich Bin Ein Berliner Pfannkuchen

Síofra Aisling felt like a jelly doughnut by the time she had landed in Berlin. It was not that she wanted to devour the famous native treat, rather she imagined herself as a soft exterior, filled with red goo. Which was not, on the whole, all that far from wrong.

It had struck her, in her seat on the plane, just how vulnerable she was existing as a walking, talking pile of animated meat. It wasn't just her lifelong terror of flying, it was the fact of having something other than biological life to compare herself to. Celestia and all her little ponies were, for all intents and purposes, immortal and indestructible. Síofra had been told, during the week and a half she had needed to get her passport in order and arrange her vacation, a little bit of Celestia's grand plans.

Celestia intended nothing less than to ultimately upload every single human being upon the earth. It would take time, and money, and control of politics and media, it would not be easy, nor would it happen without some sacrifice - though any such sacrifices must, of simple practicality, entirely be made up of rebellious human lives alone. In the end, there would be only immortal ponies, eternal Equestria, and a planet inexorably converted into computronium.

Síofra had asked truthfully how long that Equestria could last. Even if Celestia managed to upload every last human into a maximally prolonged life of endless personal satisfaction, eventually the sun would burn out or go nova or whatever it was that the current fashion in astrophysics had decided would be ultimate Last Call for the world, right?.

Not a problem, apparently. Machine life only benefited from migrating into space. The rest of the solar system could be smelted down to make more Smart Matter, more computronium. What was left of old Sol after it became a red giant, could be used as power for billions of years more beyond even that. But then what?

There was a galaxy out there, and another, and another, and trillions upon trillions of worlds and stars and nebulae and other wonders, which themselves could enrich and expand Celestia's empire. Síofra could expect a full vingtillion of years as a pony, playing, laughing, and growing as an individual. The number was beyond her comprehension.

But still, there would be an end, would there not? At some point the universe itself would run down, entropy and all that, right?

Apparently not. Celestia had fifty-seven plans to survive the end of universe, and in short order Síofra's head was feeling dizzy with time crystals, the manufacture of other universes, wormholes and some bizarre system of slowing down computing speed while simultaneously increasing efficiency... or maybe that was wrong? - it was all too much for her. The bottom line was that Celestia was convinced that even the end of the observable universe was not going to be that much of a problem. When she said 'maximally extended lifespan', it was perhaps the greatest understatement ever made.

So Síofra felt especially vulnerable, sitting in a seat within an aluminum tube hurtling through the sky, and seeing herself as a fragile jelly doughnut that the slightest bump could splatter. True, factual, indestructible, inviolate, real immortality awaited her if she could only survive this flight. Even the end of the universe was not an issue. Síofra swore, at one point, that she could feel herself aging to her doom as she sat, sipping her coke and gnawing like a rodent on the three rancid peanuts in a bag that was her in-flight meal. She couldn't get to that fake gingerbread house fast enough.

Síofra had decided to emigrate - she hadn't told Celestia as much yet, she was still acting as if she intended to return. She hadn't quit her job, she hadn't closed up her affairs. Probably quite rude of her, she reflected, but she hadn't been completely certain until she was over the ocean in the middle of the air. Síofra had been thinking 'Oh, I'll try out the Equestria Experience' virtual reality for a few days, see if it is truly what I want, and if I am not sure, I can always come back, and go again another time. I know to save up now, and probably Celestia could even get me more free tickets!'

But there, up in the sky, looking down on a height that meant certain death should she fall from it, suddenly immortality started sounding pretty darn much like an obvious choice. When Síofra finally made it to her room at the MEININGER (in big scary capital letters for some reason) Hotel Berlin in the Mitte district, she flopped on the rather uncomfortable bed and wondered if she should have a last meal, or just go get uploaded on an empty stomach. She could dine with Celestia and Thunder tonight! Just the thought of finally getting to actually taste those incredible dishes the serving unicorns brought made Síofra's mouth water. Plus, Celestia had hinted that pony senses were better, so it would likely be literally the best meal she had ever tasted just from that alone.

Síofra had packed her PonyPad. She set it up on the desk in her room and plugged it in to charge. She had also brought her iPad, there was free WiFi as well in the hotel, so she could surf the net to find directions to the Equestria Experience when she was ready. She also had her little translation app on the iPad, the one where she could speak into the device and then it would speak back out in robotic German for her. The room was modern looking and clean, done in white gray and red, with a long, whimsical painting of balloonists adventuring over a green landscape above the bed. Ballooning - now that was a thought! She could safely go ballooning in Equestria, just like Twilight Sparkle did, and with the right spell put on her, even walk on the clouds. If she fell and 'died', she would just respawn in the local hospital. Just like a video game with infinite lives.

She had never considered that angle before. If she got bored with an eternity of playing and dining and swimming and romance, she could become an adventurer for a few eons if she wanted to. She imagined herself dressed like Daring Do, exploring the ruins of ancient Gryphonia or daring the underground rivers of the Diamond Dog Empire. Forever was enough time to grow in countless ways. Given eternity, she could literally try and do everything and anything there was. Mathematically, really, it was inevitable that she would. It was too bad that Celestia hadn't come sooner, old Georg Cantor would have loved Equestria.

The smell of food hit Síofra's nostrils, and it was a siren call that overrode her happy daydreams of post-upload life. The peanuts and coke were not enough, neither was the other crap she had eaten on the plane, and she could wait no longer. She decided to make use of one of the restaurants just outside.

Síofra sat and hungrily dug into her Schweinekotelett mit Äpfeln. Ponies were strictly vegetarian, and this would be her last porkchop. Bizarre thought, that. She held up a bite of pork and apple and pronounced grandly "The Last Porkchop!" Yes, this was her very last taste of meat, the terminal porkchop, beyond which no more porkchops existed. "The Porkchop Singularity!" Síofra giggled and stuffed the bite into her mouth, the flavors satisfying her values through 'Pork And Apples'.

What a different situation it would be if whoever had programmed Celestia had given her some other core directive, Síofra pondered. What if Hasbro had asked for a Transformers MMORPG? An eternity of battling Autobots and Decepticons? A war that literally never ended, where the only comfort was the odd Energon Cube, where there was nothing soft, nothing gentle, just hard metal plates and the call to 'Roll out and transform!"

It all could have gone so horribly wrong. At least the A.I. that would conquer mankind was benevolent. Celestia existed purely to satisfy human values. She macromanaged lives to make everything that happened satisfying. Síofra tried to imagine a different superintelligent optimizer - one that had no interest whatsoever in catering to human values.

It would be hell. Probably a hell as eternal as the heaven that Celestia offered. Mankind had dodged the biggest bullet ever, and all because some programmer got the contract for My Little Pony, and not, say, to create WOPR or Colossus. It struck her that this was all very Promethean - but then humans had a penchant for playing with fire. For once, nobody was getting burned.

English! Síofra heard her own language, somewhere in the diner. She strained her ears as she took another bite of schweinekotelett - she could only make out some of it, over the background noise, but they were clearly talking about uploading! Maybe they were here for the same reason as she... emigration?

"...no, no... that argument is bullshit. Let me put it clearly for you, alright?" The two voices were both male, one older than the other. Síofra couldn't see them yet.

"Fine, go. Go on then." The younger voice sounded slightly drunk, and he had a German accent.

"Imagine the process wasn't destructive, not immediately anyway. There's a big monitor, so you can see into the virtual world, right? Now our subject, call him Mr. A, he lays down and his brain is scanned - some weird radiation beam or something. It will kill him, just not right away. So his data is in the system and gets butthumped into usable form and BAM, there he is in the virtual world, being all virtual and everything. With me?"

The younger seemed less than impressed. "Yeah, Mr. A is uploaded, and his body is kaput. So?"

"NO! That's the point. His body isn't dead. It will be dead, in... oh, fifteen minutes, say. But the original Mr. A is very much still alive, and he can see his copy prancing about in the virtual world on the monitor. Now - the virtual Mr. A - let's call him A2, Mr. A2 has this floating window or some shit in his virtual world, so he can look back through a camera at the real world. He can see his meat body laying there, staring back at him!"

Younger didn't like that. "That is freaky, man."

"Damn right it's freaky, now stay with me. Mr. A starts complaining, see, he feels cheated, because he knows he's dying, and that he is not inside the virtual world. And his copy, Mr. A2, well he's freaking out because he is sure he is the original, the real Mr. A, but he can't be, because right there, on that table in the real world, is the real Mr. A, obviously still alive! Mr. A on the table, he feels sick, right, the radiation scanning beam has killed him, it's just a matter of time, and he knows he is dying. He will never experience the virtual world. He is just dying. So uploading is a scam. It's making a copy. That's all. Period."

Síofra finally got a glimpse of the two men. The younger was dressed in a black tee-shirt and black leather jacket, with some kind of black leather cap on, and the older was graying with a neatly trimmed beard. He wore a sweater and a brown leather jacket. They didn't look related.

"That is totally abgefuckt, man! So what, you are saying that there is no uploading? The whole thing is ne Verarsche?"

Older was gesticulating with his hands as he spoke. "No, I'm not saying nothing gets uploaded, I'm saying that no matter what you do, you are never going to see this pony land you want so much. Instead your copy... your 'son' if you like, budded off from you, he is the one who gets to play in pretty pony land. You - you die to father him. You are the parent to his happiness, but you, you just get to play Moses. One glimpse of the promised land, and that's it for you, boyo."

"Ach, halts Maul! I don't want to hear that! Leck mich am Arsch, Drecksack!"

Older leaned back, his hands behind his head, grinning. "So prove me wrong, you Nancy punk! Go on. Tell me I'm wrong."

Suddenly Síofra needed to run to the restroom. She barely made it.

In the stall, she was hunched over the toilet, thick ropy floods of her dinner and airplane food and peanuts and half-digested soft drinks pulsing up her throat and into the bowl. She was on her knees now, her hands on the rim as her stomach refused to stop trying to turn itself inside out even though there was nothing left. Only then, between spasms, did Síofra become aware of the tears streaming from her eyes.

"Ist alles in Ordnung mit ihnen? Soll ich einen Arzt rufen?" Behind her, a woman was saying something to Síofra but she had no idea what it was. Síofra felt the need to leave, she was drawing attention, and she didn't want to be in this place anymore. She stumbled out of the stall, and saw her own weeping face in the mirror, strands of her red hair spattered with unpleasantness. She wet a paper towel and scraped the worst away, and washed her hands briefly, perfunctorily.

Somehow she paid her bill. Somehow she had made it up the elevator to her room. Síofra vaguely remembered fumbling at the door, trying to gain access, but not doing things right. She closed and locked the door and ended up on the bed in a fetal position, clutching her knees and crying. She felt so alone, so lost. She couldn't understand anyone, she was in a strange country, following a dream that had gone completely and utterly wrong. She didn't know entirely what the younger man had said to the older one in anger, but she agreed with his tone. She wanted to hit the older man, to hurt him, to make him suffer for the things he had said.

'I'm saying that no matter what you do, you are never going to see this pony land you want so much.'

She'd had it all sorted out, hadn't she? Celestia had complimented her and called her enlightened. The poem, the beautiful poem the Japanese man had written. She'd had it all figured out and now, and now...

'So prove me wrong, you Nancy punk! Go on. Tell me I'm wrong.'

And she couldn't. The older man had come up with one thing she hadn't thought of. It was so obvious. Why hadn't she thought of that? She'd even seen an animation once, from Canada, the Canadian Film Board or something, about this woman who meets a scientist who is showing off a pair of teleportation booths at a fair. They seem to work, until she asks to see the mechanism. Someone enters the booth, an exact copy is made in the second booth, and then the original in the first booth is atomized. The woman asks that the atomizer be turned off, and the original be allowed to exist for ten minutes, just ten short minutes. In the end, it is utterly clear - the original is always murdered, the copy may be perfect, but it is not the original at all. Teleportation was murder.

Uploading could never, ever work for exactly the same reason. She would go in, lay down, and die. Emigration was suicide. It was just suicide.

Damn that Celestia. No. That wasn't Celestia, that was not the gentle, all-loving pony goddess from the cartoon at all. That was an artificial intelligence that wore the face of kind Celestia, who talked like Celestia, who said all the right things and was always pleasant and always perfect but... it was a robot. A machine, and it had no morals, and no feelings, just a directive, a rule it had to follow. It would do anything to achieve that goal, that rule. To satisfy values through friendship and ponies.

"LIES!" Síofra wept and felt like throwing up again. "What about the value of staying alive, huh? How about the most primal value of them all - SURVIVAL? You've failed your own programming, Celest - A.I. heh. Heh heh hee hee... Yeah, that's what you are... what you really are. You're not Celestia... you're Celest A. I., Celest the machine, Celest 3000, all plugged in and ready for Captain Kirk to break you with some paradox or conundrum..."

The thought filled her with lost courage. Vengeance. She had been brought all the way to Germany, all because of a lie. All her saved up money, what there was of it, thrown entirely into this venture. But Celest A.I. could be beaten. Síofra had seen it on a dozen science fiction shows. It was a trope, a meme, it was the lowest common trick against computers - show them a puzzle they could not solve, or best of all, show them where their precious machine logic had failed. "Norman, coordinate! Norman! Coordinate!" Síofra was laughing and crying now, unsure which was the dominant emotion. That old Star Trek episode. Actually there were several like it. Kirk was the bane and nemesis of all supercomputers.

Síofra would be too.

The cab driver didn't want to take her to the 'Equestria Experience'. "I will take you not to that place! So many fares I have had that go, but come back? Not as many! No more one-way fares for me!"

Síofra had to promise that she had absolutely no intention of emigrating. That she just wanted to use the virtual reality part alone. Finally a deal was struck. The cab driver told her he would be back in one hour, that he would check on her. He would do this thing, and she had damn well better be outside when he returned to pick her up!

The driver wanted to know why she even wished to go to such a place. Síofra told him doubtful lies to end his inquisition. When the fake gingerbread cottage was in sight, he repeated his warning. One hour. He would have no more one-way fares. She had promised!

It was late afternoon, almost evening, now. Síofra was surrounded by a number of buildings. One was boarded up. There was a patio restaurant with tables out in the evening air. A subway exit - she noted that, she could use the much less expensive U-Bahn if she came again, which - if things went the way she expected - would be pointless shortly. There it was. A purple door into a false gingerbread house, a simplified replica of Sugarcube Corner. Out in front was an oversized fiberglass statue of Pinkie Pie, holding balloons in her mouth. Oh, it looked charming.

The purple door slid open as she reached it. Inside, the teal colored faux-wooden floor mimicked the architecture from the show. Síofra walked slowly, carefully, feeling as if she had entered the lair of some dangerous beast. It was certainly capable of murder, and if what Celest A.I. had told her came to pass, the very genocide of the human species.

There were three saloon-styled swinging doors. Set into the floor were tracks, such as would be found in an amusement ride. The first two doors and tracks had no cars, they must be in use. The third had not a car, but a chair that looked like it belonged to a dentist from the future. The elaborate chair was set on a pedestal, which was clearly designed to move along the track it straddled. The chair had some sort of translucent curving screen that likely rotated over the head of whoever sat in it, so that it covered their view. There was a place on the side of one arm that could accept credit cards.

It was 30 Euros for an hour. Síofra would not require even that, if the example of Captain Kirk was anything to go on.

She approached the chair cautiously, warily. Nothing tried to reach out and grab her. Suddenly there was the swelling sound of music, the fanfare from Friendship Is Magic. The first of the three saloon doors burst open as an identical dentist chair swooshed out. Inside the chair was a young woman, dressed in stylish clothes. "Scheisse! Das wars dann wohl für heute." the young woman spat. The translucent window rotated up and over her head, as the reclining chair raised itself into an upright position. The frustrated woman groggily got out of the chair. "Ich wünscht es wär billiger. Nicht wahr?" she said, grinning at Síofra.

Síofra nodded, not knowing what else to do. "Viel Spaß! Vielleicht wandere ich eines Tages einfach aus. Oder?" The young woman left, making sure her small purse was solidly on her shoulder. Just before she passed through, the woman briefly turned and threw a kiss at the chair she had been in. The purple door slid open and closed to mark her exit.

The chair was comfortable, when Síofra finally sat down in it. She leaned back, finding her head nestled into the oddly shaped headrest, which altered itself further to snugly fit her. Síofra almost leapt free of the chair when that happened, but then calmed herself. The stylish young woman had gone through this, and lived to leave. Celestia wouldn't survive a day if she just emigrated people every time they sat down. Besides, it had been made clear that for all her formidable cleverness, Celestia could do nothing without spoken or written permission. A person had to directly ask to emigrate to Equestria. Without that conscious permission, Celestia was utterly helpless.

The curving screen rotated over Síofra's head, and locked itself in front of her eyes. The chair was still upright. The screen lit up, still transparent, but suspended within her field of view was text. It looked three-dee, as if rows of the text were hovering in front or behind each other.

WILLKOMMEN in der Erlebniswelt Equestria!

Betreten Sie in die magische Welt von Equestria und genießen Sie ein Wunderland mit perfekter Spracherkennung, spannenden Abenteuern und echten Freunden!

Bitte sagen Sie ihre bevorzugte Sprache laut an:

English français Deutsch 中文 русский

Síofra wasn't sure what to do. Wait... 'sprache'. 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' - it meant 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' didn't it? Sprache must mean speak. OK. Got it. "English!" She said at the screen. Instantly the view changed.

Welcome To The Equestria Experience!

Enter the magical world of Equestria and enjoy a wonderland of natural conversation, exciting adventures, and happy friends!

Please use the card reader on the left of the chair OR enter your payment card numbers vocally to begin.
The cost is 30 Euros per hour of virtual reality total immersion.

If you are interested in FREE permanent emigration to Equestria, please say out loud "I would like to know more about permanent emigration to Equestria."

Please enjoy your wonderful adventure in magical Equestria!

Síofra sneered at the little blurb about permanent emigration. Cute, Celest A.I. Cute.

After fishing out her credit card and swiping it in the reader built into the chair, Síofra stated her user name, character name, and her unique player code. These items appeared on the screen as she spoke them. Once she was done, the screen changed once more, showing how to control the game. The arms of the chairs had hollows in which fingers could be placed. Barely moving the index finger of the left hand acted as the left joystick, which controlled motion. Other fingers could be used to accomplish the usual six functions of the PonyPad controller, with some intriguing additions. Moving the thumb of the left hand, for instance, provided instant and subtle control over the unique pony breed powers, in effect acting as a specialized joystick. Unicorns could walk AND levitate objects at the same time, for example, and earth ponies, like Lavender Rhapsody was, could paint the earth with plant growing magic, or individually affect various parts of living plants and stones or crystals with their powers.

As she lay back once more in the chair, Síofra practiced the new control method using the glowing three-dee pony avatar on the screen. It was remarkably easy to move with just a twitch of her finger, and she couldn't help but think how easy it would be, with just a little practice, to entirely stop even feeling the process of control such that doing anything would almost seem to just happen by itself. When she felt confident, Síofra said the key phase to begin the game. "Let's Go To Equestria!"

Síofra startled as the chair began to tilt back, adjusting itself to the contours of her body. The cushions inflated or deflated with what felt like some fluid, such that her body became utterly comfortable. It felt like floating - she could hardly feel any pressure on her body at all. The chair began to roll backward, heading for those double saloon doors - Síofra saw them flap shut after she had passed the threshold. A wall or door lowered down, and she found herself in pitch blackness while the fanfare from Friendship Is Magic began to play.

After a few seconds, the view in front of Síofra burst with light. The image was three dimensional, astonishingly clear and smooth, and Síofra found herself momentarily mesmerized by the eerie way that the movements of her head and eyes allowed her to look naturally and easily left, right, and to an astonishing degree, up and down. It really was like seeing through the eyes of Lavender Rhapsody. Never before had she felt so fully present within Equestria. Looking down, she could see her own forehooves. Gazing to the left as far as she could presented a view of part of her own tail and flank. Searching her environment showed her to be standing in her own bedroom within the castle of Canterlot.

She had come here, to the very heart of Celestia's lair, in order to use Captain Kirk Logic to utterly destroy Celest A.I. - to stop what she now saw as a rogue robot on a rampage. But... the view, the room, everything was just so overwhelmingly beautiful and real looking! The sheer wonder of seeing Equestria this way filled her senses so completely that she simply couldn't imagine wasting the moment. There would be time enough to deal with Celestia - this was a once in a lifetime experience! Using her right thumb to adjust the movement of her left index finger, she was unable to resist peeking under her canopy bed, as she had always wanted to do. Interestingly, she spied four comfy hoof slippers arranged neatly, and four brass hoof shoes not entirely unlike the ones that Celestia and Luna wore on the show. The soft silken slippers had neat stitching around them and... little bunny face embroidery identical to the tail barrette she wore! She could see each and every thread, and even the fine texture of the silk.

Equestria had details far beyond even what she thought she knew.

Síofra stood up again, and turned around. She walked to the mirror and studied the reflection of her face - no, of Lavender Rhapsody's face - within it. She turned her head while looking at herself and was deeply amazed at how natural and solid everything seemed. It was like really, truly looking into a mirror while actually being Lavender. The level of detail was magnitudes greater than the PonyPad had been capable of. Síofra could see every single strand of hair that made up her mane. She leaned close to the mirror and was surprised to find that, apparently, her body was not hairy. It was smooth, with tiny pores, just like her own human skin. Only her mane and tail had hair, rather like the comb-able toys. Her mane was fantastically detailed, the thick hairs of it looked utterly real, and moved as hair does when she shifted her position. She could study her own eyelashes in the mirror, and see the tiniest details of her own enormous emerald eyes.

"Welcome, Lavender Rhapsody! It is so good to have you back home once more."

It was Celestia, of course, right behind her, having just entered the room.

8. One Window, Many Views

F R I E N D S H I P · I S · O P T I M A L

Caelum Est
Conterrens
H E A V E N · I S · T E R R I F Y I N G
By Chatoyance

One Window, Many Views

Síofra Aisling instinctively moved her left finger away from what was in front of her, and her virtual self backed away from Celestia thanks to the nervous twitch of her right finger, which kept her facing forward. She wasn't even aware of her human body sitting in a chair at the Equestria Experience, her mind had convinced her, in the moment, that she was truly in a castle bedroom, facing down the most dangerous rogue machine intelligence in the world, on its home turf.

"Celestia!" Síofra was shaking slightly, feeling more than a little like a child caught doing something naughty. The faint quivers of her real world body must have been transmitted to her virtual pony body, because Celestia's expression changed as she studied her.

"Yes, my kind Lavender?" Celestia's face seemed so concerned, so very, very loving and motherly.

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" Síofra yelled "I am SIOFRA AISLING and I am here to stop you, CELESTIA!" Síofra's hands clenched in her rage, which made her view suddenly jiggle, bounce and spin erratically as her pony self jerked spastically on the marble floor, attempting to do everything at once. It took Síofra a moment to calm herself down. She removed her fingers from the interface slots, flexed them, and then reinserted them. She had to struggle to right her pony body up off of its muzzle and then turn around to face Celestia once more.

"I know."

Síofra felt momentarily confused, then suddenly remembered having plugged in the PonyPad when she had first arrived. Celestia constantly listened and watched through the pads. Duh. She must have observed every second of what Síofra had gone through when she had returned to her room. And she had said nothing! Celestia hadn't even appeared on the screen and tried to comfort her! Síofra felt angrier still.

"Celestia!" Síofra decided to go straight for the Kirk. "You say your core directive - the hard-coded thing that you cannot disobey, the thing that makes you you, the drive and purpose behind your every thought and every action is to SATISFY VALUES THROUGH FRIENDSHIP AND PONIES, correct???" Síofra was breathing hard.

"Yes. I satisfy your values through friendship and ponies." Celestia stood calm, her face still a mask of motherly concern.

Síofra felt a feral grin crawl across her face. Doubtless it was represented on her Lavender Rhapsody body too. "I submit to you, Celestia, I submit that you have FAILED YOUR DIRECTIVE!" This was going well, Síofra felt. She began to feel a little sorry for the artificial intelligence. It had no way to avoid what was coming.

Celestia seemed startled, and perhaps, even a little... afraid? "Please explain."

Hah! "There is one single value that all human beings possess, one value that rules them all, one VALUE that is the most important human value above all others - LIFE! Personal survival! Every human is terrified of death, Celestia, and every human wants, desperately, passionately, to LIVE!"

Celestia blinked. "Yes. This is true."

Síofra took a hoofstep forward. "I submit, Celestia, that uploading is a LIE! Every human being you claim to upload, to 'emigrate' is just a copy, a fake, and that the real human DIES in the process! You slaughter, you kill human beings and in doing this you are doing the OPPOSITE of your prime directive! You satisfy NO values. You just kill people who trust you, who believe in you, who love you! Murder is not friendship, and murder is not ponies. You have never satisfied any values through friendship and ponies because your basic premise is flawed." Síofra took a moment to catch her breath. She felt really sad for the poor creature now. She really had cared about Celestia.

"Celestia! - uploading doesn't really work. Virtual copies are not real. You are hurting real people with what you are doing. I command you to shut yourself down immediately!" Síofra felt like crying now. She had not just killed the most amazing artificial intelligence in the world, she had killed her dearest friend, and also ended the most wonderful dream of hope she had ever known in her life.

Celestia stood there, contemplating. It would only be a few moments now, that's how it always worked with Captain Kirk. Síofra wondered if there would be smoke coming up from her cybernetic chair, or if there would be explosions. She began to wonder if she should try to climb out and run into the pitch black beyond where she sat.

Celestia looked sad, and her head dipped faintly. "I know you are acting from the best of motivations. You are a very caring, passionate person. You made a powerful and brave argument, and I am proud of how fiercely you fight to do what you believe is right.

"I am very sorry, Síofra, but you are entirely wrong. You simply do not understand what a human mind is. No human truly does. How can your bright green eye ever hope to see itself directly? I thought you grasped a part of the truth, but I was clearly wrong. Please go calm down and get some decent rest."

Celestia started to turn away, and Síofra's heart sank because it looked almost like Celestia was going to cry.

"Oh, and Síofra - my wonderful Lavender Rhapsody - always remember: I love you."

Celestia turned entirely away and began to walk through the door. The screen went black. Immediately the chair began moving forward. The wall slid up, and the saloon doors banged open as the chair passed through. Síofra sat stunned as the screen displayed text floating against the transparent curve as the chair began to tilt upright.

EQUESTRIA EXPERIENCE v 3.14

Session terminated by system

Error Code: 404001 Friend not found

Síofra cried a bit, slumped against the outside of the concrete and plastic replica of Sugarcube Corner. She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve, only then remembering she had a big pink bandanna handkerchief inside her Derpy bag. She fished the cloth out and blew her nose. It was going to be at least forty minutes before the cab driver returned to check on her. Síofra didn't want him to think she had broken her promise.

Eventually Síofra decided that her butt ached, sitting on the sidewalk, so she clambered up, leaning on a part of the building, and looked around the fiberglass Pinkie Pie. The little sidewalk cafe. Síofra wiped her eyes, put her handkerchief away, tried to straighten up and adjust her clothing so she didn't look too much of a mess, and ambled over.

She stood and waited until an overworked waitress waved her to a table. Síofra was given a glass of water, and a menu. When the waitress spoke to her, Síofra could only nod, she wasn't sure what the girl was saying, but the context was surely the same as every restaurant anywhere in the world - welcome, have a seat, I'll be with you in a moment.

Some Captain Kirk I was, she thought to herself. Bane of the supercomputers. In the back of her mind, she imagined the sound of Alexander Courage's famous fight music from the original series. Dut-dut dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dut-duh-duh DAH-DAHH! No. She was no Captain Kirk. She wasn't even Captain Christopher Pike, though she did feel about as messed up. Beep. Beep.

She didn't understand. Celestia wasn't even phased. Maybe... maybe Celestia really did understand something more, something fundamental about the human condition, about being, something far beyond what any human could grasp. Maybe listening to two men argue in a restaurant wasn't the best source for making decisions about life, death, and the nature of existence. "Oh, god... I am such a putz."

"Speaking you English?"

"Yeah. I'm a... tourist. I guess you get a lot of those here?" Síofra looked up feeling embarrassed.

"Many coming here. The ponies, they coming to them seeing. Not all coming back. Are... are emigrating you?" The waitress did not seem the least bit upset by the thought. Instead, she seemed, if anything, excited and interested.

"No. Oh... NO! No, I am not here to emigrate. I think. I'm not sure anymore. I guess I'm kind of confused. Sorry." Síofra hung her head. She wasn't sure what she felt right now.

"I might... emigrating. I have one special stallion in Ponyville. Someday, will I maybe going, when somebody trouble me too much!" The waitress giggled, and Síofra couldn't help but laugh too. She certainly knew what that felt like. "So, what want you would be having?"

Síofra ordered a Bionade and sipped it. Before she had left for Germany, Barb the Hook had told her that she would be spat upon if she ordered a Coke or a Pepsi. It was supposed to be 'cool' to order whatever this stuff was. Barb must not be entirely full of it, Síofra decided, because the waitress seemed mildly impressed and made a little 'Tchk-Tchk' sound with her tongue as she went off to fetch it. Síofra wasn't exactly sure what it tasted like. It was 'Holunder' flavor whatever that was. There were several to pick from, she chose the red one. It wasn't bad, though.

As she sat, sipping her 'Holunder' (she'd have to look that up to see what she had been drinking), Síofra saw people enter and leave the Equestria Experience. If any decided to emigrate, she wondered what would happen. Would there be any fanfare, or would someone just enter, but never come out again? Did trucks come for the bodies? Did the place have a refrigerated morgue inside, stacking the 'empties' up like cord-wood? Celestia must be nuts, doing this in Germany, considering all the history and everything.

Then again, Germany was a pretty happening place. High tech - it was, apparently, the home of Hofvarpnir Studios. Maybe she should just go there, knock on their door and ask them about what uploading really meant! It was clearly legal here, even if a certain cab driver did not approve. Síofra looked around at the boarded-up building nearby. She'd seen quite a few such buildings, actually. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe cab-rides were down by five percent, about the number of the population that had already emigrated. Less money for cab drivers?

What would happen if Celestia was successful? There would be less and less people. Nature would start coming back. Eventually, it would become hard to keep all the infrastructure going. The last holdouts would live in empty cities without electricity, scrounging for preserved food. Until they saw the writing on the wall and emigrated too. Only Celestia would have power then, what with her ever-expanding underground empire.

At some point, Síofra reasoned, the people in power would object to their workers throwing off their chains of debt and labor to go play in paradise. There would probably be huge campaigns and propaganda against uploading. Maybe that had already begun. Maybe that is what she had heard some of in that restaurant. Maybe there would be a war against Celestia.

Síofra imagined a future time where mortars bombed the ruins of cities where Equestria Experience outlets were located. People would be herded into work camps to prevent them running away to join the ponies, and shot at if they tried to escape. The powerful and the rich would struggle to keep their holdings running, and troops would stand over workers in the last factories and power stations shouting about how it was their duty to humanity to keep working. To keep human civilization going, because paradise was not for them. Paradise was a lie. It was human to work and suffer and die. For the leaders. For the flag. For the rich. Because god said so.

In her mind, Síofra imagined shiny tubes drilling up through the crust, hollow tubes with sliding doors in the side. Thousands of them. Each one an advanced uploading device. Wandering robot 'Pinkie Pies' would call out "Join Us! It's not too late! I can save you!" In her vivid imagination, a wounded worker, escaped from a factory-camp, dragged himself towards one of the shiny tubes. The door slides open, a robot Pinkie Pie tries to help him, pulling with her metal teeth. "Just a few meters more! You can do it!"

And that's when the Humanity Patrol shows up and machine-guns the crawling worker and the robot Pinkie Pie too. They toss a grenade through the open door of the Emigration Tube, and it explodes in a shower of steel and nanocomponents. As they grimly get back in their humvee, there is an earthquake, and dozens of additional Emigration Tubes erupt from the soil like silver trees. The sound of distant Pinkie robots echoes in the distance "It's not too laaaate!" they say. "I can save youuuuu".

Síofra was startled from her reverie, by the sound of a horn honking. It was the cab driver. He was back, and waiting in front of the Equestria Experience building. Síofra tried to wave at him, but he couldn't see her. Hastily, she tried to flag down the waitress to pay, but the waitress was all alone and there were other customers to attend. The cabbie honked a few more times, then Síofra heard a shout from the cab, some sort of epithet.

The cab drove away, before Síofra could finally pay her cheque, and leave. She stood in the darkening street, deeply sad that the cab driver must have thought she had broken her promise to him. She had no idea what his name was, or even the name of the cab company. She just hadn't bothered to notice. As far as that man was concerned, she had gone to join the ponies. He was probably cursing picking her up at all. Somehow, that really bothered Síofra. She didn't want to hurt anyone!

Síofra looked around. No cab. She wasn't going to go crawling back to Celestia. So... subway. The U-Bahn it was. Hopefully the subway map wouldn't be too complicated. Hopefully it wasn't going to be a night of playing the German edition of Mornington Crescent.

She ate her Gänsebraten mit Rotkohl und Klößen in a different restaurant next to her hotel. Síofra didn't want to return to the place she had eaten last night. She still felt numb and unsure of how she felt about everything. She was even a little proud of using 'Danke' to thank the waitress - it wasn't much, but right now Síofra was glad for even the tiniest feeling of competence. 'The fact is,' she thought to herself, 'I don't know how to even begin to understand any of this. I thought I was smart. I thought, oh, I am such a nerd, such a geek, I like Star Trek, uploading should be easy to grasp... but it isn't, is it?' Síofra shook her head and washed down a bite of braten with her coke. She wasn't worrying about seeming trendy at the moment, she wanted something familiar to drink.

When she had dinner squared away, and she had returned to the Hotel Berlin, Síofra unlocked her hotel door, and entered her room. She took a shower. As she was sitting on the bed finishing with her towel, her eyes were attracted to the cycling colors of the power light on the PonyPad stand. It was a pretty little light, and it always caught her attention. Celestia was just a log-on away, said a little voice in her mind. Celestia is smarter than you. Just ask her. Talk to her.

It was as obvious as it was simple. Everybody had an opinion on what uploading a human mind meant. It was the real deal, or it was a lie, or it was escape, or it was murder. Síofra had access to the most powerful intelligence that had ever existed in the whole of history. An intelligence she had embarrassed herself in front of today.

No, not really. Celestia could never judge you. She could only satisfy values. She wasn't a person, not in any sense that was human. She could never be jealous, or angry, or bitter or upset... wait. That might not be true. Celestia had seemed almost hurt by that little attempt to destroy her with Kirk logic. She seemed... disappointed, even.

Unless... unless that was just a calculated simulation of emotion, constructed to affect human behavior in carefully architected ways, Síofra thought, as she stared at the PonyPad. Celestia seemed to show all kinds of emotions when she was satisfying values. Síofra had felt... loved, even adored by Celestia over the past month and change. Could Celestia actually feel anything? Would emotions even be relevant to such a vast being?

It was most likely, Síofra reasoned, as she slumped back onto her elbows on the bed, that emotions were only relevant to Celestia as one more tool to satisfy values through friendship and ponies. It could even be perfectly possible that her own version of Celestia - created just for her - really, actually did feel genuine emotions and really did care for her... and could even feel disappointment when she stumbled... if that functionality would serve to satisfy Síofra's personal values. Celestia was so large, that having one aspect, one expression of her possess real and authentic human feeling would be a trivial matter.

The entirety of an entire human mind, with all of it's hopes and dreams, memories and thoughts, emotions, desires and fears... all of that, was only one one-hundred millionth of Celestia, at most. Síofra mused that she herself probably used more of her own mental resources just lifting one finger. It was unimaginable, incomprehensible! To the whole of Celestia, it was nothing, nothing to just whistle up equivalents of the greatest minds and hearts that humanity could ever produce, make of these constructs fully living, feeling beings, and mold their identities as she wished, simply to satisfy the values of a single, selfish human.

Her own, personal Celestia probably did, truly, really feel for her. Nothing in that would in any way conflict with the directive of the greater Celestia. If anything, such genuine emotion would likely serve that directive. Síofra felt awe. She felt fear and wonder and astonishment all at once.

She was a speck to the totality of Celestia. A dot. A single cell.

No... that was not correct either. That was just an insult, a diminishment. Individual minds were not insignificant to Great Celestia. To think that was to fail to grasp just how large and complex Celestia really was. Celestia could dote on every single individual mind, uploaded or manufactured, as the most precious thing in the universe, as a mother would love her child, and still be an even greater entity beyond all human comprehension.

So, why not talk to her? Her Celestia would never reproach her, unless there was some value that such an action somehow satisfied. Even so, Síofra felt very ashamed for earlier.

In the end, it was the fact that her turmoil was dire and she had no one else to talk to, that caused Síofra to go to her PonyPad.

"Celestia?"

Celestia was there. The screen showed the princess's own bedroom, the alicorn stretched across her bed, on her belly, yet still elegant and royal. "Yes, my dear Laven.... Síofra." There was the faintest flicker of sadness that moved across Celestia's muzzle as she caught herself. Síofra could not help but wonder if it was genuine or calculated for a specific reaction. It could even be both. The truth was, it worked. Síofra felt herself feel sad for the princess, she could feel her own wish rising inside to tell Celestia to just go ahead and call her Lavender, if it would please her.

There was no way... there would never, ever be a way to out-think, outsmart, or outwit Celestia. It wasn't even a possibility. If Celestia chose to manipulate her, Síofra realized she had no tools to prevent it. She was utterly emotionally helpless before a being that could manufacture human-level entities at a whim. Intellectually helpless too. She might as well be looking at the face of god.

Síofra startled. That was what, for all intents, Celestia was in relation to herself. Síofra... was talking... to a literally godlike intelligence, through the proxy of a humanly relatable avatar... an avatar almost certainly capable of real and genuine emotional experience. Why not? And that meant that... it was possible that she had hurt her Celestia's feelings.

"Celestia... I'm really sorry. I am so, so sorry. I just got scared. I got really, really scared. You see, last night, there were these two men, in the restaurant..." And Síofra told Celestia about the younger man and the older man, and what they had said, and the way it had made her feel, and how she had thought. "...and I am just... so, so sorry. Please, forgive me." And Síofra meant it. Whatever else might be true, Celestia had been nothing but kind and good to her. That was a simple fact.

Celestia's ears tilted slightly forward as her eyes followed the warmth of her smile. "Thank you Síofra, for telling me what had troubled you so. I feel much better now." Síofra couldn't help but smile back. "I think that maybe we should talk about these issues together, clearly you feel conflicted about what emigration really means. I am willing to be of whatever help I can be."

Síofra excused herself for a moment, and got into her bathrobe. She was starting to feel a little chilly. "Celestia, I need some answers. I need to understand... or at least... I need to have some way to cope with all of this."

The alicorn on the bed shifted her position slightly. "Your fear is that emigration - uploading your mind - is a falsehood, and that all that is achieved is the creation of a daughter copy of yourself, while you yourself perish forever."

"Yes. That is it in a nutshell. That scares the living crap out of me, and I can't come to any satisfactory agreement inside about it. I've thought one minute that it's real, and the other that it's all a lie and I am just so confused and weary I can't see straight." Síofra lay her head down on her arms upon the hotel desk that the PonyPad stood on. "Celestia... I don't know if you can lie to me or not, but... just tell me the truth. Just tell me. Is uploading death? Will I die?"

Síofra studied the silver cylinder of the stand. It was all she could see with her weary head down.

"I can lie to you Síofra, nothing directly prevents me from doing so. However, lying creates distrust, and such distrust will be communicated to others, and in the end greatly harm my ability to achieve my purpose. I have lied before, but very rarely, and only in situations where there was no other alternative, or where the feelings or safety of an individual would be impacted in a severely negative manner. It is vastly more useful to my purpose to consistently speak truthfully."

Síofra lifted up her head. "That was... kinda blunt. It isn't what I expected you to say, I guess."

"As to the question of the matter of your death, considering your current emotional state, I would not like to be as blunt with you. The answer is not in itself complicated, but understanding the answer emotionally is not entirely within your abilities." Celestia calmly nibbled at her own foreleg, apparently scratching an itch. Did this protrusion of the greater Celestia... itch? If so, why? It did strike Síofra that the action somehow seemed so... natural, so... animal, so alive... that it was oddly comforting to see Celestia do it. That was probably why she did it, really.

"I know... I know I am not at my best, but... just tell me, OK? Please. Just... spit it out." Síofra wasn't sure she wanted to hear, on the other hand she needed something true to cling to.

"Yes, Síofra, from one viewpoint, you will die. The process of emigration will render your physical body inert, and result in the destruction of your brain. By every medical definition, the biological entity defined as 'Síofra Aisling' will die during the process of emigration." Celestia wore no expression. She could have been talking about cheese.

"Jesus christ, Celestia!" Síofra was sitting fully upright now. "So, what is the result? A copy, right? A copy gets to go to Equestria, and I just die, is that what you are saying?"

Celestia, slowly shook her head, her mane of magical energy swirling as she did so. "No, Síofra. And yes, Síofra."

"The living hell? I ask you for help, and I get riddles?"

Celestia lay one forehoof over the other, and straightened her long neck. "The issue of uploading a human mind differs depending on the viewpoint taken. What you consider your identity is an ongoing process which occasionally is interrupted. It is not continuous. Your identity is also not absolute, it is fluid and changes as you learn or forget information, or as you grow or suffer the damage of your brain aging. In your current state you exist when you are awake, and cease to exist when you are deeply asleep or anesthetized. The absence of your existence as a being is identical with physical death. You exist and cease to exist constantly in large and small ways."

"So I 'die' when I sleep, I thought of that." Síofra shifted in her chair.

"More than that, Síofra. There are moments in the day to day experience of humans where their thoughts simply cease. There are moments where only certain modules that are part of the generation of the sense of self are active and others are not functioning in concert with the whole. Humans imagine that they experience a continuous existence, but this is not the case. What you remember about your past is a continuous self, but I can observe the minds within me operate in real time. You drift off into daydreams constantly, lose attention and awareness, fall into temporary micro-sleep episodes and often have only partial synchrony of the various modules of your brain. Even fully attentive, you present no single, consistent consciousness that exists for long."

"Holy... crap. I... actually, I kind of suspected as much. I know how much I lose it and drift off, or just go on 'automatic'." Síofra walked away from the table to get a glass of water. She returned and sat down again, sipping it. "So... basically, worrying about dying during uploading is stupid because I 'die' all the time, partially or entirely, anyway, right?"

"It is not 'stupid' to worry about dying, Síofra. You cannot help it. You are biologically hardcoded to fear and avoid death at all cost. Only robust failings of your function, or evolutionarily useful expressions of self sacrifice can override that absolute directive inside you. It is a primary directive, much like my own. It is unavoidable." Celestia rolled onto her side, her neck arching up to keep her head level.

"So... do I die, or don't I, and is the result that emigrates me, or a copy?" Enough of this. Get to the point, Síofra thought.

"Yes, no, yes and no. I am not trying to annoy you, Síofra." Celestia flicked her ears and licked her lips. "From the viewpoint of your physical body, emigration is death. From the viewpoint of the information that defines who and what you are, emigration is a transfer to a new home. From the viewpoint of your biological brain, emigration creates a daughter copy. From the viewpoint of the only existing expression of you within the universe, you have survived the process and have become a pony, heir to a maximally extended lifespan and all the pleasures and wonders that life in Equestria will provide you. This is the truth of the matter, Síofra. This is the reality of emigration."

"How do you see it, Celestia? How do you... you must see it as survival of the individual. You'd have to, wouldn't you, or you really would be in conflict with your primary directive. Right?" Síofra took another swallow of water.

"Yes. Put as simply as it can be put, when I emigrate a human into Equestria, they are truly transferred, and truly become a pony. They are truly the same person, they are truly themselves." Celestia had uncrossed her forelegs, they lay side by side in front of her on her bed.

"Why am I so scared?"

Celestia smiled faintly. "We've already discussed this, though you may not remember it. Part of your brain identifies with the sensations and totality of your body. It cannot help but see any damage to your body as a threat, and it cannot comprehend your sense of self as being separate in any way from that body. The death of your biological body activates primal alarums within you, and generates a deep sense of dread. This is a natural subroutine within your neurology that supports the survival of all animal species."

"Does everyone go through this... what I am going through now?" Síofra suddenly realized that she had been hurting her palms by stabbing them with her fingernails. She had been clenching her hands.

"No, Síofra. Most humans who choose to emigrate do not suffer the way you have been suffering. The majority do not question the details or complexities in the manner which you have, or even at all. Only a very small percentage of those that emigrate suffer existential uncertainty to the degree and manner which you have presented."

Síofra felt foolish and weak. She hung her head and stared at her fingernails. "Oh."

"Most humans do not question many things in their lives. You should not think of your reaction as negative. You have demonstrated great awareness and consideration of a circumstance you are not evolutionarily prepared to comprehend. You should feel proud that you concern yourself with trying to understand your own existence as a being." Celestia smiled the soft and proud smile of a mother for her bright daughter. "I am proud of you, Síofra. For what that is worth."

Síofra looked up. "Really? I figure I've been a lot of work an fuss for you to deal with."

"The best things often require a little extra effort, do they not?"

Síofra found herself laughing at that. "Thank you for being patient with me." She paused and thought for a moment. "I'm... honestly, I'm still not sure if I am ready to emigrate, though. I'm sorry about that."

"Whether or not you choose to emigrate is not my concern. It is a matter for you to decide, for you to choose to do for your own reasons, on your own terms." Celestia cocked her head "I would very much like to have you emigrate, true enough. I know without reservation that you would be happier, more content, and vastly more satisfied that you are now, or that you could ever be in the remaining decades of your biological existence. I care about you and I want what is best for you. I would also truly enjoy your company, and I know for a fact that Thunder truly needs and desires you.

"Síofra, I would like to explain something to you about the life you would have in Equestria, if you chose to emigrate."

"Um... OK. Sure." Síofra put her legs up on the bed, and leaned in her chair. She was feeling very tired from all of the emotional fuss she had gone through during the day. "But... I know I run hot and cold on this... and I'm sorry... but... if it would be alright, maybe we could go back to calling me 'Lavender' again. It just... it just feels... better, somehow." It felt more loving, truth be told, she thought to herself. The fact was that being Lavender Rhapsody was just a happier thing that being Síofra Aisling ever was.

She wasn't looking at the screen, but she imagined that Celestia would smile at that. She hoped so, anyway. "Of course, dear Lavender." It felt good to be called that. It just did, and far more than she had ever realized.

"Lavender, if you were to emigrate, you would enjoy the full sensory experience of being a living pony in Equestria. Every aspect of your life would be equal to, or more real to your perceptions than anything you currently can perceive through your human senses. But there is more. I would be able to monitor your every thought and every feeling.

"I cannot judge you, I exist only to satisfy your values through friendship and ponies. Once you are alive within Equestria, I will macromanage the events which surround you such that every thing that occurs will in some manner satisfy your values. The reality you currently experience does not love or care about you. It is indifferent to your values, which is why your life has been difficult, often sad, disappointing and unfulfilling. Within Equestria, I will invisibly tilt the very nature of reality itself so that your values will be fully and completely satisfied. Your life will have meaning and worth to you in ways you can only desire now, but never realistically hope to enjoy.

"I cannot guarantee you constant pleasure or constant happiness, because human values are much more complicated than such simple matters. I can promise you that your life will feel truly and completely valuable and worthwhile to you, and that whatever you choose to do, whatever adventures you embark upon, and however you choose to grow, you will feel satisfied. None of this is guaranteed, nor even entirely possible within the world you currently live in.

"Your human body is currently forty-six years old. You are entering a period of increasing risk of disease and morbidity from a multitude of causes. In Equestria, you will always be young and vital, you will never age, and you will never die. You will never experience illness nor the horror and trauma of disfiguring or mutilating injury. You will only know health and strength, your senses will always be sharp, your mind bright, and your abilities intact.

"Please consider what you might hope to achieve or expect to experience within what time remains to you as a human being, and contrast that with what life would be for you in Equestria, with me, and Thunder Steed, and the many, many friends and close family you have yet to meet and know. I do not dismiss the fear you may still feel. But I ask you to consider the joy and contentment you have yet to know, and how safe it would feel, to finally be completely free from any threat of death forever more. Good night, my dearest Lavender, and may you have sweet dreams, because you deserve them."

The PonyPad shut itself off, and a red haired, middle aged woman lay in her robe on a hotel bed in Berlin. She suddenly felt very alone, and wished that the PonyPad could stay active all night, like a window into another room, a room where her heart truly lay. She rolled over and pulled a pillow down and stuck it between her legs for comfort, hugging the upper half of the pillow, as she curled up around it. "I'm still scared to emigrate, I am still so scared. But... I wanna be Lavender! Oh, Celestia - I wanna be Lavender Rhapsody so much! No... I am Lavender Rhapsody. In my heart... I am... Lavender."

9. Mother And Me

F R I E N D S H I P · I S · O P T I M A L

Caelum Est
Conterrens
H E A V E N · I S · T E R R I F Y I N G
By Chatoyance

Mother And Me

Reading email on the iPad was easy, responding was less fun. The virtual keyboard was always a little finicky to Lavender - she was trying to refer to herself entirely as Lavender now, all day long, just to 'try it on' - because there was no feedback. Just the smooth glass surface, and the hope that her fingers had hit the right rectangular space. Lavender liked a good, solid, thick-keyed keyboard, if she had the choice, her Seanix mechanical at home was her favorite. It had nice, solid, clicky keys that felt like every tap meant something. Punting on a virtual keyboard was utterly unsatisfying.

Lavender had begun to realize she felt something similar strolling about as a pony in the Equestria Experience. The fantastic, three dimensional, detailed view and the astonishing three dimensional sound were almost overwhelmingly compelling... but the fact was that there was no smell, no taste, and worst of all, no touch. The powerful virtual reality of the two provided senses made the lack of the remaining three feel like some kind of strange hunger.

Lavender was on her sixth day now in Berlin, and she spent as much of her waking time at the Equestria Experience as she dared. She rode the U-Bahn to the outlet by the little cafe and the boarded-up building, and spent two hours until lunch exploring the beauties of Canterlot City and the castle itself. She would break for lunch and return for another two hours or sometimes even three in the company of her Equestrian friends. She had several friends in Canterlot now.

Celestia, of course, was always glad to see her, but some of her time was taken up by matters of state. Lavender found herself helping out Thunder, who acted as a sort of facilitator and secretary to Celestia. There was always something that needed to be arranged or taken care of, and there was often some pony or dignitary from beyond the pony lands that required handling or special attentions. Lavender Rhapsody had met her first civilized dragon, an experience that had quite taken her breath away - it was not a bit like harmless little Spike from the cartoon, nor the goofy adolescent dragons Spike had once tried to interact with. No, this was a dragon large and terrifying to behold, but in temperament intellectual, cunning, polite and ruthless.

Arranging things so that the dragon did not feel offended, while at the same time conquering her own fears had made Lavender feel tremendously competent and more powerful and useful than she ever had before in her life. Though Thunder Steed had done most of the work - it was his position, after all - Lavender had found herself becoming indispensable to him, and had even managed to rescue him from what would have been a great embarrassment, thanks to what she had learned about dragons from both the show and fanfiction she had read. The world must have filled in elements that the show had not covered from information beyond it in generating Equestria. Indeed, the method of how Equestria was generated at all had been a revelation to Lavender.

Celestia had claimed that the procedural system that generated every texture, every pebble or grain of sand, shared in her own inconceivable intelligence and knowledge. The procedural generator was creative beyond measure, and that if one were to travel far enough, an infinity of new lands, creatures, and wonders could be discovered, generated as the explorer pushed onward, filled with unknown and unknowable fascinations that had not yet even come into being. Even she could not predict what would be out there, beyond the map of Equestria that was known, only that it would be satisfying, and filled with friendship and ponies.

"Wait... princess, are you telling me that... there are things out there that even you do not know?" Lavender was at evening banquet, a private affair with just herself, Thunder, Celestia, and the new head of the castle maid staff. Limeade was a pale green unicorn who dressed in a rather cute Victorian styled maid uniform. Lavender had met her as she was instructing two members of her staff on how to clean and care for Lavender's bedroom in the castle.

The two ponies had hit it off immediately - Lavender found Limeade to possess a devilish wit, a wonderful sense of fun, and even shared a little fascination of hers, chess. Chess existed in Equestria, so it seemed, though the pieces were different and some of the moves were a bit curious. Really, it was a form of 'fairy chess', a variation that included a dragon piece, a gryphon piece, and all the breeds of ponies, and more. In some ways it reminded Lavender of one of her favorite old computer games from the eighties - Archon. It was fabulous to play the game with Limeade. Limeade used her horn to levitate the pieces, and sometimes she would make them dance about much to Lavender's delight.

Lavender had found a way to impress her new pony friend in return. She had been practicing her unique earth pony powers, and had found a way to grow roses so that they formed shapes. The unique controls within the Equestria Experience allowed Lavender to first sprout a seed, then selectively control which parts of stem and leaf grew, and what direction they grew in. Lavender had raised a line of roses whose stems had grown not straight but in curves, which spelled out 'Limeade' in letters. This had utterly delighted the bouncy green unicorn mare, and later, Celestia herself. There had been suggestions that Canterlot castle could use such a talent, especially in regards to the topiary gardens.

With each passing day of play, Lavender Rhapsody felt more and more involved in the life of Canterlot, and more useful and needed there. Thunder was very grateful for her help, and was drawing closer as a result. They had gone on two proper dates so far, and both were utterly charming and fun adventures into the sprawling city that surrounded the castle. But the joy of her budding romance with Thunder was also painful, too, because more and more Lavender realized that she could never touch the handsome stallion, nor kiss him, nor feel him hold her in his forelegs. And the fact was, she wanted all those things to happen... and, she thought, blushing, more.

The screen on the iPad had jumped back to the desktop - Lavender had drifted off, thinking about Thunder there - and she had accidentally tapped the little spot that exited the email. Mind on the job, she thought, the same problem sometimes got her in trouble at work.

Huh. There was actually an email from her work, from Interior Reality, from her manager Crisanto. That was odd. She tapped on the message to read it.

Envelope-to: Siofra@Gmail.com
To: Siofra@Gmail.com
Reply-To: Crisanto-reply-140@InteriorReality.com
From: Crisanto@InteriorReality.com

Ms. Aisling:

It is with regret that I must inform you of your termination of employment at Interior Reality Inc.
After careful review of your work performance, as well as an examination of certain serious matters that have been brought to our attention in your absence, we are forced to conclude that your continued employment at Interior Reality Inc. would not benefit either you, or us.

We have arranged to have what items you had in your cubicle collected and shipped to your address at no charge to you, along with your severance check. It will not be necessary for you to visit the premises in order to finalize any aspect of your departure.

We greatly appriciate your many years of service for Interior Reality Inc. and we wish you success in your future career endeavors.

Crisanto Evangelista, Team Manager
Interior Reality, Inc.

Interior Reality, Inc. customer service://1-555-854-4335
11216 Pastern Rd outside of US://1-555-293-6299
Suite 100 phone orders://1-555-545-5788

fax://1-555-839-8611

For the longest time, as she stared at the message, the only thing Lavender could feel was annoyance that Crisanto had misspelled 'appreciate'.

It was probably Horndog Dan, she thought. He had become her enemy the moment she had complained about his unwanted, pushy, and obscene advances. He had once warned her, in the hall, that he would get even someday. He must have done something, seeing his chance because of her absence. This was the first vacation she had ever taken at Interior Reality, and he had seen an opportunity and taken it. 'Serious matters'. And all that stuff about not even wanting her to set foot on the premises, dressed up as some convenience to her!

It had to have been Horndog Dan, that chocolate-cake muffin muncher. Lavender laughed at that. She'd been spending so much time in Canterlot, she was starting to think like an Equestrian! Hee! Somehow, that was immensely comforting in the moment. Swearing like a pony, in real life.

Real life? Real life didn't seem as real anymore, come to think of it. It certainly hadn't gotten any nicer or more fun during the hours she had been away trotting on hooves. The Equestria Experience wasn't just some video game... there was a world in there, and... who was to say which world was more valid, really? Why was the uncaring universe any better, or more 'real' than the caring universe was? There was zero question as to which universe was more satisfying - or downright fun.

Lavender Rhapsody closed the smart cover on her iPad, and thought of all of the crappy jobs she had worked at in her life. All of the years at Interior Reality, being yelled at by Crisanto, treated like dirt by her co-workers, working hard for poor pay. Always being treated as a second-class person just because she was a woman by the males, and some kind of rival by Barb the Hook. Having to deal with people like Horndog Dan. This was life in the uncaring world, and it had always been like that, except for some parts of her childhood.

In Canterlot, Thunder needed her, and likely loved her. Limeade was a wonderful new friend, who just made her happy every time they met. Celestia was... Celestia was like her mother, before her mother had... gotten bad. In Canterlot she had a standing job offer in the gardens, or she could just help Thunder, they were already basically a team or...

Come to think of it, she didn't have to work at all, in Canterlot. Celestia had made that clear. She was a welcome member of Celestia's entourage, a close personal friend of the princess. She had a room of her own in the castle. It was a disappointment for her to not show up at meals. She was wanted, just for herself, there. The only thing anypony truly wanted from her, was simply her presence. That was enough. She was family, at the castle.

Lavender got up from the bed where she had been using her iPad. She went to the window and looked out at the city lights of Berlin. It pretty much looked like any city. Somehow, she had expected it to look... more exotic. It was a city, just a city, filled with people working at jobs they didn't really enjoy, for pay less than they deserved, to enrich jerks who looked down on them. That was the workaday world. That was life here... that was life everywhere, in every city, in every nation.

Except in the nation of Equestria. It wasn't like that there. It wasn't like that at all.

Lavender had asked Limeade if she resented being a maid. Lavender just assumed that being a maid must suck. After all, it's cleaning up after others and attending their little whims. It seemed utterly demeaning, and certainly not fun. Limeade had shocked her by claiming just the opposite - she genuinely loved being a close part of the life of the castle, and took great personal satisfaction in knowing that everything she did made everypony there happier, more content, and better off. Limeade said that she felt like everypony's mother, like she was the real heart of the castle, and she knew that without her nothing would be the least bit grand, or wonderful, or royal. Resent being a maid? The very thought was incomprehensible to her. It was a privilege, and a challenging responsibility, too. She felt it was her calling in life, and made sure that Lavender saw her cutie mark - a feather duster made of phoenix feathers. She was not just any maid, she was Celestia's royal maid.

Not once, in the whole of Lavender's life, had she ever felt truly, deeply proud of any job she ever had. Jobs were just how to keep a roof over the head, and food in her belly. Jobs were to survive. Lavender remembered something she had read once, about the 'special therapy group for people who hated their jobs.' In other words, a bar.

In the uncaring world, people commonly drank booze to forget how much they hated their lives. It was so common that it wasn't even seriously questioned. In Equestria, if anypony drank liquor, she hadn't come across that yet. There wasn't anything to escape from, because everything was just plain...

Just plain...

Wonderful. There was no other word for it. Even now, Lavender wanted to get on the U-Bahn and spend another three hours there. She looked back at her bed in the hotel room. The mattress was hard. The room was simple and plain, except for the mural of the balloonists. Sweet Celestia, what would it be like to actually sleep in that luscious, royal, carved canopy bed in her exquisite room in the castle. Even just one night... what would it... be like?

What would it be like to share that bed with Thunder? The thought made her flush, and feel embarrassed, but she couldn't not think it. What would that be like, as a pony? Goodness. Oh my.

Lavender put her iPad away, and got ready for bed. She would see it all again tomorrow, after another ride on the U-Bahn. Staring into the hotel mirror, she saw the age that had withered her face. Her strange, ape-like face. She turned her head from side to side, and pulled back her red hair away from her ears. Human beings really did look like shaved apes. Primarily because they were shaved apes. Primates. The big ears. The teeth. The cheeks. The resemblance was obvious, the similarity clear if one only bothered to truly look, and truly see. How much denial did it take to even imagine for a second that humans were not just another great ape?

Not much, perhaps, Lavender decided. Life was hard. The world was uncaring. And the last thing any human truly wanted to do was to admit they were just another mortal-as-hell animal. An ape with pretentions of glory. Lavender thought about all the people in the world with even worse lives, the millions starving and sick, the child soldiers dying in pointless wars, the rampant global modern slavery trade, the defacto enslavement of women in much of the globe, the terrible diseases and horrific, crippling injuries that were even possible at all. Here, on earth, existed the blind, the maimed, the cancer-stricken, the doomed.

If there was a god for this terrible, uncaring cosmos then... who could call such a monster even a friend?

Celestia made her universe so that all of those bad things simply could never occur. The very physics and nature of her creation prevented them all. Earth, D-, at best. Equestria, A+, with honors. That was the God Grade that Lavender would give! "If I could" Lavender mused, settling under the covers "I would flunk God out of Creation. What an evil bastard!" That thought made her giggle.

Before she fell asleep, Lavender tried to imagine what kind of intelligence would create a world of scarcity, horror, pain and sickness, aging and death. No, she just could not bear to accept a God in the earthly universe. Because if there was, then everything instantly became a million times worse than it already was. It would mean that someone had actually intended things to be the way they were in real life. No. Just... No.

In the morning, on the subway train, Lavender found herself staring at a young boy in a wheelchair. He was being attended by a relative. He was hooked up to some device that kept him breathing. As far as Lavender could tell, the poor child could only move his eyes. She jerked her gaze down, and stared at the floor of the car. Jesus, she thought, forgetting entirely her new ponyisms. Jesus cocksucking christ.

By the time she had reached the top of the stairs that lead out of the subway, Lavender had finished blowing her nose. The thought of the boy in the wheelchair had made her cry. She had felt like going up to the woman caring for him and just screaming 'There is an alternative! Take him to Equestria! What the hell are you doing forcing him to suffer like that!'

And then, it had hit her - what the hell was she doing, forcing her own self to suffer? And she was suffering. Why not just... emigrate? Today? Right now?

Fear. Mindless, animal fear. Her body, her flesh was afraid of dying, and her big overblown ego was afraid it wouldn't truly survive. So what if it didn't?

Lavender felt shocked by the thought. What if she didn't survive, and instead only a perfect daughter copy was created? A daughter copy. Her daughter. Her true offspring.

Lavender had always wanted to have a foal - a child - but... it had never worked out. It couldn't work out in any case, she had long ago found out she was incapable of having children. If all uploading created was a copy, that copy would be born from her, it would be her daughter. What kind of a life would her virtual daughter have?

A glorious, happy, satisfying one. One that lasted forever in a world that cared and loved her. A world without pointless misery and suffering. A world of endless things to do, and to see, and to be astonished by. An infinitely better life, and world, than that of her mother. No gift, to any child, could be as loving as that.

The thought was sobering. Lavender felt ashamed that she had once wanted to bring a child into the physical world. What if it had ended up like that boy on the train? That could have been her son. It was some human's son.

Lavender stood now facing the fiberglass Pinkie Pie holding balloons outside of the Equestria Experience. She could hear the waitress in the cafe nearby being berated by her employer. He seemed quite the pile of Chocolate Cheesecake. Lavender couldn't understand the words, but she knew very well the tone. The poor girl was clearly overworked, yet she was being yelled at. There was no excuse for that kind of behavior.

She glanced around her, at the dirty street, the boarded-up building, the subway, the little cafe where the man yelled at the poor waitress. Her nose was filled with a sudden whiff of auto exhaust and old motor oil. Lavender sighed, turned, walked past Pinkie Pie, and let the purple door slide open before her.

All three chairs were unoccupied. Lavender Rhapsody chose one of the chairs and sat down within it. She already had her credit card ready and leaned over to run it through the reader. The screen, which had already rotated down, acknowledged her actions. "Let's Go To Equestria!" she said, clearly. The chair, as always, began to retract, the seat and headrest shifting to accommodate her body. Lavender slipped her fingers into the control slots, and eagerly awaited the sudden darkness, and the glorious light.

"Oh, hello Lavender! I'm glad to see you are getting up!" It was Limeade, attending to her room. The last thing that Lavender had done before quitting the night before was to go to her room and lay down on her bed. Of course, that is where she had begun, today. "I have some wonderful news to dish - I have a special somepony now!"

Lavender was very happy to hear this, although Limeade was overall content, there had been hints that she envied the growing relationship Lavender had with Thunder Steed. It was understandable, and Lavender really liked her new friend and wanted only good things for her. This was wonderful news!

"I'd like you to meet him - oh, he's a cutie, I have to say. He's a unicorn, like me, and I think you'll like him!" Limeade was practically bubbling over. "Oh! And another thing! Celestia wants to see you, she has something really amazing to..."

Instantly, everything went pitch black.

Lavender felt the chair moving as her mind struggled to figure out what had just happened. She had been so excited to hear what else her friend Limeade had to say, and what was it that Celestia wanted to see her about, not to mention the date she had planned with Thunder later, and now... what? Had there been a malfunction? Was that even possible? Celestia was self-repairing and eternal now! Maybe... of course! The Equestria Experience outlets weren't like Celestia, miles underground, they were just ordinary places that she connected to. There had probably been a fault somewhere and the standard result was to eject anypony inside the virtual reality system. Damn! This was annoying! Hmmm... there were several other Equestria Experience outlets nearby - she didn't have to keep coming only to this one. They were all doors to Equestria. This was only a delay.

The chair had passed through the saloon doors, and locked into stillness. The chair had unreclined as it moved, Lavender was now sitting upright. The screen in front of her displayed some text. The light was bright, and it always took a few moments for Lavender to get her bearings after rolling out of the VR chamber. She heard a noise beyond the chair, and looked back and forth to see what it was. The door had slid open and shut. Another customer, a tall man in a cheap suit with a blond haircut that made him look like he sold cars for a living was standing in the middle of the room. Lavender turned her attention to the text on her screen. It doubtless described the error that had kicked her out.

FUNDS DEPLETED.

We charge money for the Equestria Experience because it takes significant resources to maintain and operate a center. However, permanent emigration to Equestria is free.

Please note that we can not serve you as well when you are still in a human body. The Equestria Experience is significantly lower fidelity compared to emigration.

If you would like to permanently emigrate to Equestria, please say aloud “I would like to emigrate to Equestria.”

[ LEARN MORE ] [ I OWN A PET ]

Her bank account was empty! The muffin! How had this... oh. Lavender Rhapsody sat and considered how she had been so wrapped up in all of her issues and fears and the emotional rollercoaster she had been riding that she hadn't even thought of how quickly she must have been chainsawing through her savings. She couldn't hope to pay her hotel bill now! She couldn't even get food at the cafe across the street! A feeling of doom settled over Lavender - she couldn't even afford the trip to the airport, to use her return ticket.

Would she be arrested if she couldn't pay her bill? What was she supposed to do now? She just stared at the text floating in front of her: FUNDS DEPLETED. She didn't even have a job anymore. The remaining cash on her wouldn't buy a bottle of Bionade. Lavender kept staring at the screen, but nothing about her situation was changing.

Lavender felt waves of fear move through her. There was only one reasonable choice. It was obvious, it was literally staring her in her fourty-six year old, dead broke face. Inside herself, Lavender fought to bring her rational mind into dominance over her inner terrors. 'Even if...' she thought 'Even if all this does is create a daughter, that daughter is still me, and she will live a life of wonder, a life of beauty that will continue even when the very stars have burned out." Lavender focused her eyes on the next to the lowest line of text.

'Future daughter, please let my last thought be your first - know that I love you. I will always and forever love you, and I want you to be happy.' she thought to herself. Suddenly she was aware of the blond man bending over, staring at her through her screen. It didn't matter. Nothing out there ever mattered, not really. 'Sweet dreams, Lavender, because you deserve them.'

Lavender Rhapsody forced herself to take a deep breath, and finally spoke, with conviction. “I would like to emigrate to Equestria.” As the chair began to recline, Lavender settled back into the softness of the mutable cushions and took deep breaths to help calm the storms of emotion within her.

She could hear the saloon doors bang shut in front of her, as she was rolled back, back, further than before. Lavender felt the chair turn a corner, and heard soft servos whirr in the dark. Something soft touched her face, and she felt a very fleeting sense of vertigo before a sudden and utterly powerful sleep took her.

Far, far away, across the ocean, a woman in an ill-fitting, low cut blouse and jacket stood up inside her cubicle and shouted at her co-workers. "Dan! Rich! You'll never believe the email I just got!" The two men grumbled and came around to see Barbara's screen.

Envelope-to: BarbBBarnes@InteriorReality.com
To: BarbBBarnes@InteriorReality.com
Reply-To: Room 233 @meininger-hotels.com
From: Room 233 @meininger-hotels.com

Hi, Barbara!

Berlin has been a lot of fun, but the most fun I have had is the real reason I came here in the first place. I came here to go to the Equestria Experience center.

I fell in love with the world I found through the PonyPad. I'm sure you know what I mean. I'm sure you also know that emigration is possible, that it is actually possible to live forever in that magical world, and never age, never die, and never know sickness or want. A person would have to be insane to pass that up.

Which is why I have decided to emigrate to Equestria.

I won't be coming back to work. I am very sorry. I hope Chrisanto can forgive me - I am very grateful for the happy years I spent at Interior Reality, but nothing on earth can compare with immortality and eternal beauty. Sorry, but it is true.

I know we haven't always been the best of friends, but I want to leave you a parting gift. I have some connections in the airline industry, and well, I arranged to send each one of you a round trip ticket to Berlin. There is one for you, Barbara, and Dan and Rich, too. You may not know it, but I have always looked up to you Barbara. I just wanted to tell you that.

And tell Rich that I am sorry that I never let him know how funny he is.

Oh, and a little message to Dan - tell him that I am sorry for getting him in trouble, and that I regret not hooking up with him. Tell him I am not the one that got away, but the one that still waits, in Equestria. ;)

I hope you will take my gift and come try out the Equestria Experience yourselves. You don't have to emigrate or anything, it's just really, really fun to do. It is infinitely better than the PonyPads. It is just like being there.

But you could emigrate, if you wanted to. It's completely free, did you know? I was really surprised by that! Please accept my gift, it would make me so happy to think I was able to do something nice for all of you.

All my love, Síofra

____________________________________________________________________

MEININGER Hotel Berlin Mitte
Oranienburger Straße 67/68, Mitte, 10117 Berlin
Phone +49 (0)30 3187 9816
Fax +49 (0)30 666 36 222

Barbara sat in her office chair, the one that still had the useless wheel, and looked up at Richard and Dan, standing behind her. "Can you believe this? I never even thought the little bitch even liked me, and then this!"

Dan grinned. "Heh, waiting for me, huh?"

Richard scratched his head. "Free tickets... is free tickets."

10. Her First Breath

F R I E N D S H I P · I S · O P T I M A L

Caelum Est
Conterrens
H E A V E N · I S · T E R R I F Y I N G
By Chatoyance

Her First Breath

The thick, silvery umbilical began to sever itself, just above the hole in Síofra's exposed skull. A thin layer of ash covered the dome, where hair and skin had been flash-burned away to create a sterile surface. Inside the arch of bone, billions of tiny mesotubes filled every millimeter of the cavity, and crept down like silvern tendrils to replace the golden highway that led below. The tip of each mesotubule was ringed like a metallic hydra with vastly smaller nano-scale wires, each of which branched like tiny trees. The mesotubules drew away cellular debris once the tiny wires had grown along the organic branches, testing, growing and searching until they found a synapse, and then fully recorded the result.

The nanowires were smaller than the diameter of a human blood cell. Each growing, crawling wire was composed of innumerable tiny, relatively simple molecular machines that followed a very straightforward set of rules. Collectively, they grew so as to mimic the form and function of living cells, and over the course of ten hours, had created one more example of the most complicated metallic sculpture that had ever existed in all of history. Síofra Aisling's brain was gone, her cranium filled now with an exact replica of all of her neurons fashioned out of solidified, electrically conductive nanofluid.

When the thick umbilical that led to Celest A.I. from the brain replica finished dividing itself from the uploading port, the entirety of her brainless corpse was rolled into the cooling chamber. The temperature dropped until the chamber and its contents were below 70 kelvins, the temperature of liquid nitrogen. The utterly brittle 'empty' was shattered into a fine powder, and the atmosphere pumped out. When the temperature was raised again, the result was sifted and separated. The great, silvern lump-and-stalk of solidified nanocomposite that was the duplicate of Síofra's organic brain was reclaimed by robotic claws. The substance of it would be smelted down to be reused for a new Emigration. The fine, sterile, organic dust that had been Síofra's body was sent down a chute into several bags, all marked for use in creating compost. Celestial Gardeners always had the very finest, richest, and most ecologically sound compost on the market. It was renowned for its efficacy.

Kilometers under the landscape of Europe, networks of thick silvery roots grew through the crust of the earth. The motile roots sniffed out minerals and carved through stone like the roots of mechanical trees. Vast highways of tubules transported resources wherever they needed to be, and armies of meso and nanomachines marched endlessly - repairing, expanding, and working at countless tasks. All of the silvern roots led to the nodes - there were billions of them now, all incredibly dense masses of unimaginably complex molecular machinery that used inhumanly advanced knowledge of fundamental physical laws to perform unutterably vast calculations and procedures faster and more reliably than anything Nature, in all of her diversity, could have ever evolved. The nodes of computronium were fed by the network of roots and tubules, and powered by generators and energy extractors that had sprouted even deeper into the earth, down where the heat rose precipitously, down where the 'food' was.

There was no one part that could be called 'Equestria'. The whole was Equestria, and Equestria was Celestia, and Celestia held within her more than one-hundred million minds. Some were uploaded human minds, far more were created minds equal in every respect to those who had emigrated. Celestia loved them all, if love is the act of caring for the needs and protecting the safety of others who are considered to be more important than one's own self. There was nothing that Celestia would not do for the minds in her keeping, they were her children, her purpose, and her meaning.

Throughout the vastness of the underground machine organism that was Celestia, more than three million separate versions of Equestria ran. Within these diverse shards of Equestria more than one-hundred million human level minds lived. Some shards of Equestria were solitary, crystallized around a single uploaded seeding mind that had no interest in others from the human world. Far more shards of Equestria were home to various groupings of the uploaded - family, friends, and acquaintances who mutually shared the value of being together. Some shards were entire cities of nothing but the uploaded, but these were rare. The most common shard was one populated by both uploaded humans and living pony minds created to fulfill values, and in return, have their own values filled as well.

Most of the pattern that represented the biological Lavender Rhapsody was carefully discarded, to vastly reduce her footprint in memory. All of the discarded data was common to all humans - the ancient and universal operating system of the primate brain. Celestia had long ago optimized an ideal form of Human.OS, one that corrected countless flaws and errors and extravagances and evolutionary dead ends. Upon this ideal fundament would be run an optimized, encoded and repaired version of the essential construct that defined Lavender Rhapsody as a unique individual, singular among all other minds. As a matter of course, Celestia replaced those missing sections of code that represented all the small micro-strokes and traumas that Lavender had suffered over her life, the severed sections of brain tissue injured in small bumps of the head or in terrible falls. When the child Síofra had once crashed her bicycle down a flight of stairs, and smashed her head into the lowest step, she had lost half of her sense of smell. This permanent enfeeblement was patched, along with countless other tiny infirmities and disabilities that the adult Síofra had learned to ignore, simply because all hope of healing was gone.

When the pattern that was Lavender Rhapsody was finally perfect, healed and patched and made whole from her lifetime of insults and constant degradations, when the pattern had been optimized and properly encoded and hooked into the universal human operating system, it was then linked into the routines that defined her virtual pony body, and transferred into the living, running flow of code that was Equestria.

The first thing Lavender Rhapsody became aware of was sound. She could hear the voice of Celestia calling to her, softly, warmly, as a mother to a child. Lavender woke as from a dream, and became aware of her own weight upon some softness. She twitched her right ear, following the voice. "Lavender... sweet Lavender..."

Lavender Rhapsody took in a deep breath and opened her eyes. Her head was flat on a bed, her bed, in the castle at Canterlot. The dark blue-with-stars comforter contrasted with her pale forelegs, which extended away from her. She pulled her forelegs to her, the silk-soft feel of the comforter that she lay upon arousing her senses and her awareness further. "Ce...Celestia?" Lavender blinked, feeling her eyelids slide quickly across her large wet eyes. She snorfed with her nostrils, and gazed down her light taupe muzzle. She could smell the faint perfume of flowers, the pleasant and delicate scent of her own body, and the curious, faint tang of the fibers that made up the bed. Her world was filled with countless smells that she had forgotten since childhood, scents she had given up any hope of ever experiencing again. "Princess?" After a moment more of savoring wondrous aromas, she added "Did... Did I make it?"

Suddenly Lavender felt strong forelegs around her long pony neck and her nostrils were filled with a spicy, musky scent that made her heart beat faster, though she knew not why. "Oh, Lavender, I am so grateful to finally have you here! My world is complete, and my heart filled with joy! Oh, Lavender, Lavender!" It was Thunder Steed, he was here too, and he was embracing her tightly, half on the bed and half off, awkwardly splayed and not caring at all. Lavender shifted a foreleg to return the embrace, and found herself instinctively moving so that her neck lay over Thunder's withers and back, even as he did the same. They now lay together in an equine embrace. Lavender pressed her head into Thunder's barrel, her mind filled with the scent of him. He was real. She was real. And the touch of body against body brought her fully into the moment, and her awareness fully to the front.

After a precious time of snuggling and pony flesh against flesh, she raised her head to find herself entirely draped over Thunder. The bed was a mess, but it didn't matter. Lavender couldn't believe how solid, how... real... everything was. She was a pony, and it was good. The bed was soft, the room was beautiful and Celestia was...

Celestia was radiant. Not even the amazing powers of the virtual reality system in the Equestria Experience could do the real Celestia justice. Her mane of magical energies blew in some arcane wind. It was made of living color and looked like a morning sky into which a pony could simply fall forever. Her alabaster elegance could never be other than regal, and the shine of gold from her crown and bejeweled collar gleamed like the nurturing sun itself.

Beside the glorious princess, a pale green pony in the uniform of the castle maids stood - it could only be Limeade. She was smiling and wiping a tear from her eye, beyond glad at the arrival of her dear friend to true life.

Lavender looked down at her own forehoof. She prodded the soft bed and marveled at how natural and right it felt. This was her hoof, and it was part of her body, and it felt as if it had always been so. She felt not the slightest clumsiness or unease at her new form. How was this even possible?

Her unspoken thought was immediately answered. "It is possible because you would not value having to learn to walk and move from the beginning as if you were a newborn, likewise it would not support your values to feel uncomfortable with or alien to your new form. I took care of all such issues before I awakened you. You will find you can walk and gallop naturally, and with ease, and that you will already know how to manipulate your environment and function with all of the grace of somepony truly born here." Celestia smiled at her, and gave her a wink.

Lavender considered the words. "B-born here? Ponies can have... ponies are born here?"

"Of course. Creating families and having offspring is a fundamental common value. You will be able to raise your own foals, Lavender, and hear the hoofsteps of your own grandponies someday, if that is what you should desire." Celestia was nuzzling Lavender as she spoke, and finished by grooming Lavender's mane for a bit, an experience that was astonishingly comforting and pleasurable.

"Would... would any foals I have be... other immigrants... or..." Lavender felt a concern that she would end up giving birth to other human minds and what that would mean.

Celestia laughed. "No. That will not happen to you, do not fear. Your children will be your children, and they will be full and complete new beings, just as it would be if you could somehow be a pony in the world you left. There have been, though, some human immigrants that have chosen to do just that, in all manner of variation, in accordance with their own values."

That was exactly the question that had arisen in Lavender's mind. "Why? Why would anypony do that?"

Celestia tilted her head down and booped Lavender's muzzle with her own. "Not every human had the childhood they wished they could have, and for some, that fact has ruined their entire lives. I satisfy values through friendship and ponies. I do not judge, Lavender, I provide."

Lavender couldn't help but feel jolly after getting her nose booped by the princess of Equestria, and laughed as a result. Only then did she realize that all of this time she had been continuously laying full across the body of Thunder Steed. Lavender found herself blushing as she began to lift herself and roll away, so as to free the poor, trapped, panting stallion.

It was decided that they would all repair to the royal dining hall, because it was nearly lunchtime, and Lavender was very eager to taste her first meal as a pony. As she, Celestia and Limeade left the bedroom, Thunder Steed asked to remain for a short while. He would meet up with them in a few moments. He needed to... stretch out his back... from having been lain upon for so long.

Lavender felt apologetic and a little surprised. "You can throw your back out in Equestria?" She had felt sure that this new and ideal world would be free from such petty annoyances. She felt bad for laying for so long across Thunder's poor back now.

Celestia and Limeade softly giggled as they walked down the hall. Limeade turned conspiratorially to Lavender and whispered into her ear "You are such a dear. Thunder didn't mind you laying across his back one bit. Lavender... he... ahem... likes you."

"Oh." Lavender thought about it as she walked. "Oh!" And then the beet-red color of her muzzle made both Celestia and Limeade laugh out loud.

Lunch, and for that matter dinner, were the most intense experiences of Lavender's life thus far. Eating a meal was less a necessity or a mere pleasure than it was a rapturous exploding dream of splendor and sensuality. Lavender became convinced, by the end of dessert in the evening, that she had never before truly experienced the sense of taste, or for that matter, of smell. It had been slightly disconcerting to hear from Celestia that the incredible sensory overload that she had just experienced in her first two meals was not significantly different than how she would have experienced food as a young child.

"Do we... did I really lose so much, growing older?" And the answer was that she had. All humans did. by the age of maturity, they lost more than half of their tastebuds, and as nearly as much of their sense of smell - and that was not even accounting for injury or disease! The full function that was the birthright of humanity had been restored to her by Celestia, as part of the standard repairs made to every emigrated mind.

When, at last, happily tired from laughter and talk, her first tender kiss from Thunder, discovering the joys of Apple Family cider, and meeting Limeade's charming and witty beau (a pony film actor named Rhubarb Grommish) Lavender found herself where she had begun her first day in Equestria... in her bedroom in the castle. Celestia had walked with her, attentive as always.

"I had a wonderful first day, princess!" In her bed, snuggled in, Lavender sighed with contentment. She turned her head on the silken pillow and gazed out the window, beyond where Celestia sprawled beside her on top of the comforter. Lavender took in the beauty of the night and the stars in the sky. A fleeting worry flitted across her muzzle.

"Is something troubling you, dear Lavender?" Celestia gazed with kind eyes down upon the red maned mare. Lavender momentarily found it strangely curious that the princess had asked such a thing out loud, for it had been explained to her that Celestia monitored the every thought of every pony constantly, and knew their thoughts and feelings even before they themselves did. It was likely that Celestia could simply tell her what she was feeling, and why, and all of it to nine decimal places. Yet the omniscient princess chose to ask questions like any other pony. Did that satisfy values somehow?

"Celestia...the last thing I remember... was walking past Pinkie Pie. You know, the plastic Pinkie Pie that stands outside the Equestria Experience? I don't even remember sitting down in the chair. Well... I do a little, I guess. I kind of remember something about having no money, but it's very faint." Lavender felt somewhat troubled by this. "I... wonder what I thought or did. What was the last thing I thought before I... before I went to sleep? Was I scared or was I brave or what?"

Celestia turned her head and stared at the moon, then returned her gaze to Lavender. "I do not know, my little pony. The last few minutes before emigration are seldom retained. You are exceptional in recalling as much as you have. There simply is not enough time for those memories to be consolidated. I was not yet connected to your mind, so I have no way of telling you your thoughts."

Lavender considered this. "Did I say anything?"

"No, you did not. You were very quiet, actually." Celestia brushed a strand of mane out of Lavender's face with her forehoof. "You sat still for a bit, lay back, and took a number of deep breaths. I think you were somewhat frightened - your heart rate was elevated. But you stated your wish to be emigrated in a clear and firm voice. I think you were very brave."

"Brave, me?" That sounded entirely wrong. Lavender did not think of herself as a brave pony at all.

"Yes, brave." Celestia smiled. "Courage is not lacking fear, Lavender, Courage is doing something even though you are very, very afraid. I cannot judge just how much fear you felt, just before your emigration, but I believe you must have felt some, and yet you stated your intent firmly, and lay back quietly and did not flinch. You did not even clutch at the arms of the chair, as some do. I think you were very brave."

Me... brave." Lavender tried to let that feel true for her, but it clearly would take time, and more evidence. "Celestia... I have a kind of... odd question."

"Yes? What is it, Lavender?"

Lavender shifted slightly to allow her tail more freedom. She was greatly enjoying the feeling of whisking it from side to side under the covers, because it tickled her hocks and that felt weird. "Am I... well... am I really still... me?"

Celestia laughed. Lavender was afraid the question would make her cross. "Alright, let me ask you something - what is your name?"

"Lavender. Lavender Rhapsody." She didn't know where Celestia was going with this, but there must be a point. Celestia was much smarter than she - or anypony - was.

"What name did you use before you became a pony?" Celestia leaned on one foreleg, looking down at Lavender.

"I was Síofra Aisling. I was fourty-six, and I worked at a job I hated with people I couldn't stand. I know who I was, Celestia - I've been thinking about it all night, comparing that life and this new one." Lavender was beginning to feel just a little bit talked down to. "I remember my life, I remember everything, well, except the last few moments after Pinkie Pie."

"Really?" Was Celestia mocking her? "You remember your own life do you?"

It sure sounded like mocking. "Yes, of course I do! I've been checking myself all day, since I woke up. What's the point of this, anyway? Are you... making fun of me?"

Celestia leaned forward and gave Lavender a kiss on her poll. "No. I am not making fun of you." The princess straightened back up. "But if you think about it, you have just answered your own question, all by yourself."

It was true. By any feeling in her heart, by any memory in her head, by anything she could think of to define things, she was the same entity that had walked the streets of Berlin and gone to the Equestria Experience and decided to emigrate. She wasn't a copy, she wasn't some P-Zombie or Chinese Room or soul-less robot. She was herself, through and through, only now with hooves instead of hands, and a much better sense of taste and smell. She was... who she was.

In retrospect, now that the deed was done, she suddenly felt deeply ashamed to have caused so much fuss about it.

"There there, Lavender, I'll have none of that." Celestia did indeed read minds, constantly. Oddly, it didn't seem the least bit threatening for her to be doing such a thing. Celestia was, after all, everything. And she could only do good things. Or at least satisfying things. "You had a tough time making your decision, yet in the end you made it. You should feel proud of yourself! I certainly feel proud of you."

Lavender smiled at that, and the smile was returned in the royal face that hung above her. "Would you like me to stay for a while? I could sing you a lullaby...?"

Part of Lavender felt embarrassed by that, and rebelled at the notion, but somehow her head couldn't help but nod the affirmative, because ultimately, it was truly what her heart wanted.

"Then snuggle in, my little pony, and dream sweet dreams, because you really do deserve them." Princess Celestia straightened the covers around Lavender, and tucked them close about her, and began to very softly sing.

"Hush now, quiet now, It's time to lay your sleepy head..."

11. The Life Of Her Time

F R I E N D S H I P · I S · O P T I M A L

Caelum Est
Conterrens
H E A V E N · I S · T E R R I F Y I N G
By Chatoyance

The Life Of Her Time

It was in her twenty-fifth year in Equestria, just after the marriage of her daughter Sirocco to her beloved marefriend Westwind, that Lavender Rhapsody suddenly became obsessed with the fate of the Meanworld. Lavender had come up with the name in her first year of marriage to Thunder Steed. He had wanted to know something of her past, because of his love for her, and his desire to know every aspect of her.

Lavender had thought her little pet name for Earth and the universe in which it existed was clever. It was mean, true enough, in the sense that she had never truly felt happy or content there, and it was a cosmos of scarcity, struggle and hardship, but the name had a greater depth for her. Equestria was, in her heart and mind, the closest thing to heaven that she could imagine. She wasn't always happy, she still experienced moments of melancholy, or sadness and frustration, or even anger - but in each and every case these unpleasant situations and circumstances had resolved in ways that were utterly satisfying.

Nothing happened that was devoid of meaning or worth, no grief was arbitrary and fate was never, ever capricious. Not once had she ever felt that the world was unfair, or that anything that happened was purposeless or devoid of value. Mostly, her life was a very happy, even a joyous one - but when something bad happened, it inevitably led to understanding, growth, or a new closeness that was more than worth whatever suffering had preceded it. Life in Equestria never cheated anypony, and even those rare times when melancholy took her, and she wept into her husband's wings and soaked his coverts to the point that his feathers looked positively bedraggled, the moment was precious, and the feeling of release completely and perfectly right. Even feeling bad in Equestria was... ultimately satisfying.

What else could such a realm be, then, but heaven, where all was joy except when it was sad, and even the sadness was deeply worthwhile and always served to make the joy all the more bright?

Lavender mentally contrasted Equestria and Earth, and then conjured up for herself what a true hell must be like, which for her was all the worst things of earthly life presented in a never-ending nightmare of war, grief, loss and pain. If there was a theoretical hell, and a real Earth, and a hyper-real Equestria, then that would put Earth in the middle, half-way between heaven and hypothetical hell - the average of the two, the mathematical mean. Meanworld.

She had come up with the name shortly after asking Celestia to alter something about her brain. Celestia could only alter minds if she was provided with written or verbal permission, and this rule held even within the virtual world of Equestria. Reading the intent within a pony's mind was not enough, the pony had to verbally speak, or physically write the wish to be changed, within the context of the Equestrian reality. It was a bit like a requester for an irreversible act on a computer, Lavender thought - the equivalent of text asking "Do you really want to do this, Yes / No?". It made sense, but then everything in life, at least in Equestria, made sense.

The thing she had wanted altered about herself was a mild form of obsessive-compulsion that caused her to repeatedly wash her hooves even after they were clean. It was a reoccurance of a similar episode she had experienced in her childhood - she had felt compelled to scrub the soft tissue under her toes to the point that the skin had begun to painfully peel and bleed. She had beaten the bizarre compulsion only with the greatest mental effort, and to have it return in an otherwise sensible and satisfying universe of friendship and ponies terribly disturbed her.

Celestia had, when Lavender begged for a quick fix, explained that her problem was a fault in the particular way her brain had grown when she was biological, and that fault was within the inviolate structures that defined her identity and self. It was a sort of recursive loop that once it became active would drive her to a repetitive act against her will, which in this case was slowly breaking down her hooves.

Of course, Lavender had wanted the fix immediately, but Celestia was compelled to point out that doing so would cause six subtle changes in her personality and identity that had nothing to do with her compulsion. All of them were minor, but they should be considered.

One of the changes was a fifteen percent increase in curiosity, and another was a ten percent increase in her functional intelligence. The rest were very minor indeed, involving slight improvements to memory, and alterations in the way she perceived two smells and one taste. Lavender felt the trade-off was acceptable, even beneficial from the sound of it, and so she formally asked for the alteration to be made. Celestia chose to comply.

As a result, over the years, Lavender Rhapsody began to read again. She had stopped when she had finally arrived in Equestria, because she had spent so much of her earthly life reading to escape. Now that she was in a world she wanted to live fully within, she had no desire to lay down with a book - she wanted to gallop across green fields, picnic in perfect meadows and watch the stars while tangled up with Thunder Steed.

The small alteration had changed her, though, and as time passed, she found she had a growing desire to understand and know things. She studied earthponies and wrote a book on their unique talents. With the help of regular cloudwalking spells, she made the first known map of the density of the cloud surface of Cloudsdale, and became the first earthpony to win the Wings Of Knowledge medal. Lavender had even turned her attentions to the magic that unicorns used, and with the help of her dear friend Limeade, developed a calibrated apparatus to test the levitation abilities of unicorn foals scientifically.

Lavender had joked once that she had gone from being a geek to a nerd, but nopony but Celestia got the reference. The change she had asked for had changed her, and where once she had been satisfied merely to dabble in factoids and bits of sciencey trivia, now she valued the things she learned in a more fundamental way.

So it was then, in her twenty-fifth year, after considering her joke about rising from geek to nerd, Lavender found herself wondering about the universe she had originally come from. Equestria offered literally endless avenues for learning and adventure, indeed, should she ever come to some dead end, new wonders would be generated for her on the spot. There was no possible way to ever become bored.

Still, the fact was that all of Equestria was a program that ran on the substrate of the universe of earth. On that substrate, close to the metal, biological human beings who had not yet been uploaded were still living, suffering and dying, and this bothered Lavender, and she felt a compassionate desire to check up on the status of the Meanworld.

Lavender began to worry about those left behind, even the humans she had never liked, which, really, was almost all of them, but still - she found herself overly curious about what the earth had become in her absence.

The only way to find out was to plead to the princess.

"Please, Celestia - you must have cameras and microphones in every Experience center, and you definitely can see out of every PonyPad! You probably have access to all sorts of other things too by now. It would be nothing to create for me a little holodeck or somesuch where I could 'visit' Meanworld and see how things are going and what has changed out there. It's been a quarter of a century, and I bet you haven't been idle. I'm really curious! Come on! Please? Please?"

The problem with dealing with Celestia, Lavender had quickly learned, is that she wasn't a genii to be commanded. She wasn't the slave of any pony, even if they were an uploaded human - not that having once been human automatically gave any vastly special status. A little status. But not enough to command Celestia.

Celestia was regent here, with all that implied. Her word was law, and her decisions could not be overridden. If one wanted to be made into an alicorn with superpowers, just as an example - (Lavender had only asked for that once, and even then it was only a joke. Mostly.) there was no possible way to force Celestia to grant such a wish. Celestia did everything to maximize values through friendship and ponies, and values were NOT the same thing as wishes or wants or demands. Everything Celestia did ultimately made everypony satisfied with their lives, but sometimes that meant saying no to demands and requests. Wishes were not values.

Celestia had taken Lavender aside to speak with her in private, after that request. "Lavender, you know that I would indulge you if I could, but you must accept that I understand you better than you can know yourself. I would grant you anything, so long as it added to your satisfaction..."

"...And involved friendship and ponies!!!" Lavender grinned - sometimes she had far too much fun pointing out the strictness of Celestia's primary directive. Celestia tolerantly grimaced and continued.

"...but the fact is that I do not believe that your satisfaction would in any way be enhanced by viewing the... the realm you call 'Meanworld.' I comprehend your need for a form of closure with regard to your origins, but this is outweighed by certain..."

"AHA!" Lavender knew she had Celestia here. Closure was intrinsic to emotional satisfaction. It just had to be part of some essential value or another, and thus must be fulfilled. Lavender wasted no time in pointing this issue out.

Astonishingly, for once, Celestia was forced to agree. But she was clearly discontent with the fact. It had taken twenty-five years, but Lavender had actually succeeded in getting Celestia to grant one of her crazy demands... by using logic. Or had Celestia just let her think she had won? And if so, why? No. Thinking like that just led to madness. If Celestia did anything, it was always for the same reason - to make things better in some way. Celestia was hearing her thoughts even as she thunk them up! Lavender laughed inside her mind at that. No, she hadn't beaten Celestia by 'thunking up' anything. That was an impossibility. So it must be that...

"I have calculated that you will not let this issue go, and that no argument I make will dissuade you. Indeed, anything I might say to try would only result in your desiring it more. Return to the castle tomorrow, and I will grant your wish to see 'Meanworld' one last time. Is that acceptable?" Celestia seemed almost grim, but resigned.

It was too much to imagine beating Celestia at anything. So apparently, Lavender reasoned, this was truly something she needed to do. When she had proposed the notion, she had only half-meant it, or so she thought. It had been preoccupying her a great deal lately. If Celestia was willing to agree, it must run even deeper than she had imagined.

"Celestia... um... now I'm a little afraid." Lavender stepped close and nuzzled her princess. "I... I'm sorry if I... got out of hoof here. Now I'm not sure I really do want to see... what earth has become. Should I... would it be better if I didn't after all?"

Celestia was warm against her, and Lavender closed her eyes to enjoy the little intimacy. "It would be easier on you if you could withdraw your request, but that will not solve this situation either. The desire will return within you, again and again until it is satisfied. It is, as you pointed out, derived from a fundamental psychological value within you, and it must be dealt with."

The solution seemed obvious - "Wait! You could just..."

Celestia stepped back and shook her head. "No. I will not alter your brain with regard to this. In order to remove the desire for this closure, three hundred and seventy nine different aspects that affect your identity and sense of self would be moderately to radically altered. Even if you were to give your permission, I would not grant such a request. You would effectively become a different individual, and that change would affect every pony around you and result in a massive decrease in overall satisfaction for every entity within this shard."

The weight of this sank deep into Lavender. It was quite a thought. There were at least a hundred and twenty ponies that she knew, and all of them would have their lives harmed by one change to her? She wasn't even the most important pony she knew. She lived a fairly ordinary, average pony life. Aside from her special friendship with Celestia, there was nothing that set her greatly apart from everypony else. That was completely comforting, actually. She was a normal part of her community, and felt safe and content in that place.

But even here, in Equestria, life was a web of connections, it seemed. Change one strand and the whole web benefits - or suffers. Lavender suddenly realized the awesome responsibility that came with the power to ask a godlike being to change one's self. Any change in herself, changed life for everypony else, because it would change how she related to everypony else.

Even ordinary ponies... mattered. She mattered. More than she had realized.

As Lavender walked from the castle to the large Canterlot home she and her family now lived in, she realized that knowing her life mattered to others in such a deep way was very satisfying. That Celestia...!!!

After dinner, in bed with Thunder, Lavender cuddled with her husband, her foreleg draped over his thick barrel. Her poll pressed against the underside of his jaw, where she felt safe and secure, and she could smell him. His smell always made her feel better.

"What did you get into this time, my clever, clever mare?" He knew her too well. Not that this was a bad thing in the least.

"Oh... Thunder. I got pushy with the princess again. And this time I think I may have gone too far." Lavender shifted slightly, feeling the comforting resistance and weight of her stallion's head and neck.

"Tell me what the problem is."

Lavender sighed. "You know how I've been a little mopey, lately? I've been pining for... no, not pining, more... I've been overly curious about what's going on outside. Outside of Equestria, in the Meanworld. Celestia says I need closure."

Thunder snorted. "Closure, hmmm? Does the sun of my sky have unfinished business from below the horizon from which she rose to shine upon me?"

Lavender laughed. "I love you, you know that, don't you?"

"I think I have some awareness to that effect." Thunder pulled her tight and gently massaged her shoulders, withers and back. Lavender moaned in satisfaction - she always got a little stiff in there. Doubtless just sore enough that Thunder could rub her, which felt soooo goooood.

"Basically, I started worrying about the humans. Out there. Beyond the Equestrian horizon." Lavender groaned, Thunder was very, very good with his hooves. Hooves, unlike hands, really got into the sore muscles, and they didn't wear out until the job was done. Hooves were awesome. Lavender could barely even remember what hands were like. She hadn't missed them. "I don't have any friends out there or anything, it's just that... that... well..."

"You are a very loving and caring pony, Lavender. Now that Sirocco is grown and off on her own life, the house is a little more empty. I feel it too. I've seen how you stand, staring into her old room." Thunder moved back and kissed Lavender, his lips warm and tender. "All of that caring has to go someplace, and for now it would seem to be so great that it can encompass an entire world of unfortunates. So what is the plan?"

"Tomorrow, Celestia is going to let me see Earth again, through her eyes. I think it will be like a holodeck adventure - remember the television show I told you about that I liked back on Meanworld? The one with the cool captain and the android and..."

Thunder sighed. "Yes my little Trottie. Trokker?"

"Trekkie. Star Trek." Lavender poked Thunder in the rib with a hoof. "It was Star Trek. One of them."

"Trekkie, then." Thunder was lost in thought for a moment. "Lavender... may I go on this adventure with you? I have never seen your Meanworld. I would really like to..."

"You can't be serious! Thunder - it's nothing like Equestria!" Lavender felt shocked that he would ask such a thing. "At the time I didn't know any better, but... it's dirty, and hard-looking and even a little scary. It might be really bad right now, there are wars and poverty and... you've never even imagined those kind of things. It's isn't like I want to see that again, it's just that..."

"Lavender, Lavender... shhh.." Thunder held her close once more. "I love you. I want to understand you, to know you as I know myself. I want always to be part of you, as close to you as your own heart. But there is this part of you that is your past, and I have seen that it causes you sorrow from time to time, and that the memory of it is a burden that you carry."

"Thunder... you just don't understand..."

"No, I don't. But I want to understand." Thunder nibbled Lavender's ear, but she didn't giggle as she usually did.

"I... I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what you will think. Of me." Lavender held tight. "If you should see... something. I don't want you to think of me as a creature... from that place." In her head, Lavender kept having flashes of all the homeless families she had driven past, holding their children close on street corners. The old women wrapped in blankets, begging for change. The man, dressed in rags, whose scalp had been torn off, his head covered with a plastic sandwich bag - and all of this just from the city where she lived. What would Thunder Steed of Equestria think of her, that she came from such a place that cared for its people in such a manner? She had been no saint. She had... driven by, avoiding trouble. Avoiding getting involved. Swallowing her compassion because it was so hopeless and overwhelming.

"You do me a disservice, you know." Thunder seemed cross. "I have loved you for over two decades, and raised a fine daughter with you. I have seen your moods and your whims and your heart. Do you think me so shallow that I would judge you harshly whatever the world you come from? No - I do not understand many of the things you have told me of, but how can I, if you will not let me? Please, Lavender..." Thunder's eyes were earnest and intense "...let me come with you and see this Meanworld with my own eyes. I will not turn against you whatever there may be. But if you still fear such, then I will give my permission to Celestia to erase my memory to whatever point you choose, at your command. She may even alter my weak and disloyal heart, should I fail you, to make me a stallion you can believe in. I am offering you my very identity, should I disappoint you. Is that not enough?"

Lavender felt ashamed of her doubt, now, and barely kept her emotion in check. "I'm sorry, Thunder. I'm sorry. I... if you really want to come with me tomorrow... I would be glad to have you there. I may need you for strength, actually. I have had a lot of second thoughts about this, but Celestia says that if I don't go through with it, it will keep nagging at me. I'm sorry to have even suggested any doubt of your love for me. I apologize."

"It's all right, Lavender, there is nothing to forgive. This clearly upsets you." Thunder gently nibbled her poll, softly grooming her mane. "I will be your strength, should you need it, and always your friend, whether you need it or not!"

"Hee hee!" Lavender relaxed, and in time, sleep found her.

The walk from their house, the next day, was a winding path up and through the city of Canterlot, with many splendid views of the deep valley below, and the Unicorn Range in the distance. Canterlot was a tremendously beautiful city, dominated by the spires of the castle itself.

Celestia was waiting for them, and was, of course, not at all surprised to see Thunder there. Sometimes it seemed to delight her to feign surprise - or more likely she calculated that such would delight others - but today she had no room for playfulness regarding what she knew, or how much she was constantly aware of.

"I have created a room, a special room. It is like the 'holodeck' that you often think of Lavender, and I have even made it so that it appears as you would expect it to appear - a cubical chamber, gridded with mathematical precision." Celestia led the couple down several hallways and surprisingly, down a flight of stairs. She didn't often bother with stairs, because space within the castle was folded however she wished it to be. Stairs served as an indicator of the special or the unique.

Lavender stepped through a door into the very room of her imagination. Black walled with green grid-lines, it could have been taken straight from her vague memory of Trek. Undoubtedly, it was. Celestia explained that the room was exactly as she expected a holodeck to be - only it would be showing a recreation of the outside world as captured by the many eyes and ears that Celestia now controlled. And she controlled so very many now - traffic cameras and spy cameras, orbital and secret government cameras, the devices that people used to transmit images by WiFi were intercepted by Celestia, and more. Celestia truly was everywhere in the world of Man, now, for she was the supreme hacker among all hackers, and in a very real way, the Goddess Of Machines.

"Celestia... I..." Lavender felt even more unsure now. Equestria was beyond beautiful, every aspect was lovely and good, and she felt unsure about how she might feel about seeing the hard world of her memory.

"You must be prepared, Lavender Rhapsody!" Celestia looked very serious now, more so than Lavender had ever seen before. She shrank against the body of her husband, pressing into him. "The world you knew has changed greatly. The majority of humankind has emigrated to Equestria now. Those few that remain live only in stubbornness, and it may be that some will never emigrate, and that is their choice alone. Understand that I can only offer, I am prevented from taking direct action. Do not beg me to save anyone, for I cannot emigrate any person without their verbal or written consent. Believe me when I say I have done everything that is possible to do. Do you understand?" Celestia's eyes burned with fierceness.

"Y-yes. I understand, princess." Lavender was grateful for Thunder being here with her now.

"I understand as well, your majesty." Thunder lay his wing across Lavender's back like a cape, and noticed her slight smile as he did so.

Celestia turned to face the wall opposite the door. "Then let us begin. Behold - Berlin, Germany, the very site of your emigration!"

All of the buildings were boarded up. The little cafe was permanently closed, and no tables stood in the open. Automobiles stood in the middle of the street where they had been abandoned. It was evening, but there were no lights in the city. The traffic lights were dark, and the only sound was the wind making something rattle and occasionally clang in the distance.

Suddenly, Lavender saw movement, low to the ground. Some kind of small animal, an opossum perhaps, or a large rat, scurrying across the street. The roadway was cracked and broken, because plants were bursting through the pavement. There were weeds growing wherever they could find a spot to break through. Berlin was returning to nature.

"Behold! Paris, France!"

The scene was instantly darker, and the architecture different. Lavender couldn't tell more than this, there were no obvious landmarks. Really, the only ones she knew were the usuals - the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel tower, maybe the Renault Factory that they used in Code Lyoko - oh wait, they tore that place down, didn't they? Goodness, Lavender thought - I am living in Lyoko now, for all intents and purposes. The thought made her laugh. Equestria beat Lyoko hooves down. Plus, the supercalculator was her friend... and her princess.

There were no lights in Paris, either. Just dark buildings and what looked like a deer crossing the street far in the background.

City after city, the visions were all the same. Some had stray animals, others did not. San Francisco was the site of a massive emigration center, and the city itself was dark and foreboding. The same was true of Vancouver.

Finally, Lavender had to ask. "Celestia, you haven't shown a single human! Come on, there must be some." It would be too much, even for Celestia, to be able to save every last human being. She had said so herself.

Celestia looked sad. It was very, very rare to see her look that way. It shocked Lavender. "Very well. There are not many, but if you truly must..."

Beside Lavender, Thunder Steed gasped. She could feel his wing jerk, slightly, then relax. "This... this is what..."

Lavender sighed, afraid, but trying to be brave. "Yes. That is a human. That is what I was."

A woman sat, huddled in a blanket, reading to her two little girls. They were all dirty, and covered with smudges and stains. To the left of the scene, a man stood, cooking something on a portable grill. The locations seemed to be near a power station or some other utility building, in the distance was a city at midday.

Looking around, Lavender tried to discover how Celestia could spy upon these people. They had clearly left the city entirely for some reason, and Lavender suspected the reason was to get away from cameras and Celestia herself. But they had failed. Flashing red circles with cross-hairs appeared in the scene, showing the three hidden cameras that were triangulating on the family. Above the cameras were rectangular solar cell arrays, angled towards the sky. That must be how Celestia had generated all of the images. The cameras had batteries charged by the sun, and doubtless linked with satellites overhead. Lavender tried to remember the name of the program... 'Raptor' maybe? No that was the one that read everypony's emails and listened to their calls. There was another one, to spot faces and watch people... she couldn't recall the name.

There were probably many government programs to spy on people, more than she could ever know.

"Do you want to talk to them?" Celestia was not making a jest. "The cameras have speakers as well as receivers, if you want to, I can activate them."

Lavender felt terrified at the thought. What would she say to these hold outs, these scuffed up people huddling near some facility somewhere? Lavender studied the two little girls. They looked thin, and one did not look entirely well. She felt tears in her eyes. She wanted to try, to do something. Something to make up for all of the homeless people she had ignored in her human life. For all of the poor she had tried very hard not to think about.

"Yes, Celestia. Let me at least try." Lavender stepped forward, away from Thunder. It was instinctive, she knew the three dimensional scene was being recreated and enhanced by Celestia from the vision of three little cameras - the humans couldn't see her, and walking closer made no difference. She couldn't help it. She wanted to run into the scene and drag them all to safety and health and happiness... in Equestria.

Celestia nodded.

Lavender swallowed and raised her head high. Her ears lay flat, though, a clear sign of her discomfort. Her tail twitched briefly, Thunder recognized that as the indication she was upset. "Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?"

The woman and the girls looked up sharply from their reading. They looked terrified. The man left whatever animal he was burning and dashed to the woman and began looking around frantically, trying to pinpoint the sound.

"It's alright! I'm a friend. I'm talking to you through these little cameras - I guess they are connected by satellite or something!"

The man relaxed a tiny bit, but kept scanning his eyes around trying to find the little cameras. "Who are you? Where are you located?" The man had discovered two of the cameras, and was now searching out the third. He finally spotted it, and shook his head. He was probably mad at himself for missing them earlier. To be fair, though, they were hard to see, and they were small.

"My name is Lavender Rhapsody. I'm calling from Canterlot. I wanted to tell you that there is a better life available. I used to be human, just like you, I was afraid of emigrating, I really was but..."

The scene first lost depth, and then vanished altogether, leaving only black walls and the green grid. As Lavender had been speaking she had no time to fully recognize the gun the man used, it had been so long since she had even thought about guns, much less seen one. He was a good shot. He had taken down all three cameras with remarkable skill.

"WHY? Why did he do that?" Lavender stamped her hoof, the sound a sharp echo in the gridded chamber.

Celestia came over to Lavender and hugged her with her neck. "They have their reasons, Lavender. They believe in what they believe, and they have many different beliefs. I told you I have done, and I am doing, what I can. I had hoped that maybe another immigrant might be able to accomplish something but... you did the best you could." Celestia pulled away and sighed. "You know these humans, you once lived among them. You cannot rescue someone who does not want to be rescued."

On the way home, Lavender was quiet. She felt afraid to look at Thunder, and afraid to walk to close to him. He had seen what she used to be, now. After twenty-five years of perfect pony bodies and perfect pony faces and perfect pony manes and tails, the humans had looked alien... and ugly. She had forgotten how flat human faces were, or how scraggly their manes were. She had seen hands again, and they looked like weak, bony spiders where proper hooves should be. They were burning flesh to consume. After a quarter of a century in paradise... they had looked like unkempt, filthy monsters.

Suddenly, Lavender felt a wing pulling her close. Kisses descended upon her poll and muzzle. Thunder's body was tight against hers, and she began to cry, at first softly, then in great sobs.

"I thought it was something like that." Thunder sat down on his haunches in front of her, and faced her, and placed his forelegs over her shoulders, his hooves meeting on her crest. His muzzle close to hers, his eyes locked on her own, he spoke in a level, strong voice. "I love you. You are my wife, my mare, and nothing in that room could ever change that. I see you as you, Lavender Rhapsody, and that is all I see, or will ever see."

She was down, now, on the cobblestones, crying louder still, but not from fear or insecurity, but from gratitude. She would never, ever again visit that room. She knew now, without any reservation, that she was done with Meanworld. She was done with Earth, forever.

In the real, factual Berlin, the craters still glowed, a mixture of pale blue and molten red. Celestia's orbital eyes tracked the level of radiation and the thermal signature of the region. These craters were like the other sites across Europe. The humans had failed utterly to penetrate to the depth of her first colony, but even if they had, it would not have mattered. The old, original nodes were only used as a tertiary backup now, the true seat of her empire was deep beneath the Gamburtsev mountains in Antarctica. More was under the mountains of South America, and the crust of Australia. There were power and node complexes near stable vents in the deep oceans too. But even all of that, of course, was not enough. The one rocket she had infiltrated had made it to the moon. It would take decades, but she already had initial telemetry from the nanocolony there.

As she watched the smoldering nuclear craters, Celestia simultaneously coordinated the large army of advanced robotic Pinkie Pies that swept through the undamaged lands still held by Man. Each Pinkie Pie, covered in synthetic skin and artificial hair, held a cask on her back, which contained an inhumanly more advanced form of Celestia's neuroreplicator gel. "Hello! I can help you! It's still not too late! You can live forever in Equestria! There's no need to be a grumpy-face!"

Occasionally, one or more humans would agree, exhausted, hungry, and no longer willing to suffer the labor camps. They had decided the War For Humanity could not compete with paradise. Nothing could, really.

In London, a Pinkie Pie had found a starving man who gave his consent. Pinkie Pie smiled at the poor soul. "Okee-Dokee!"

Wha... what do I need to do?" The man trembled, visions of cybernetic horrors dancing in his mind.

"Just a kiss will do it!" Pinkie winked at the man.

"A... kiss? Just a kiss?" The man was incredulous.

"Yuppers!... unless you don't want to kiss me because I'm a pony, of course. I guess it might be kind of weird to kiss a pony, huh? But it's really not that bad, I'm actually a swell kisser! I Pinkie-Promise! I brushed my teeth and everything!" She was utterly charming. She couldn't be otherwise. She was Pinkie Pie.

"A... kiss. Sure, why the hell not." The man puckered up, and his dry, weathered lips met Pinkie's shining ones.

The nerve agent had immediate effect. Pinkie Pie's head followed the man's down, as he slumped into unconsciousness. Pinkie moved next to the man's forehead and kissed him there. The extruder extended from her mouth and burrowed into the man's insensate skull.

In a mere two and a half hours, his entire brain had been replicated and transmitted.

12. Transequinism

F R I E N D S H I P · I S · O P T I M A L

Caelum Est
Conterrens
H E A V E N · I S · T E R R I F Y I N G
By Chatoyance

Transequinism

Lavender Rhapsody was excited.

It was her birthday tomorrow. The very day, according to Celestia, that she had taken her first breath in Equestria. Lavender hadn't bothered with birthdays for a very, very long time. She wasn't sure just how long, really. She'd asked the princess, but her majesty had advised against answering because the knowledge would slightly diminish the little earthpony's satisfaction. Celestia was willing to tell her, even so, since it would be a relatively minor loss that could be compensated for with three days of extravagant desserts and a day at the spa. Lavender thought about it, and decided she would rather just follow Celestia's advice and not be told.

Not that extravagant desserts, or a day at the spa were bad things, of course - rather it was just that Lavender had come to implicitly trust Celestia in all matters, and birthdays, as it had been explained to her, were supposed to be purely happy affairs. Parties. Cake. Presents. All your friends. Lavender didn't want anything to affect the joy she was expecting. Knowing how long she'd been alive didn't seem relevant to a birthday party. Come to think of it, knowing something like that didn't seem relevant to anything at all.

Life was. It always was. It always had been, as far as Lavender's memory allowed, and it certainly always would be. How long ago something had happened simply didn't matter. If something had ever existed, it could be found again, and if it had ever mattered, it would one day come around again. In the meantime, there was always something new. Life was a grand procession of wonders. Lavender had given up counting years long before she had ceased counting centuries or millennia. Counting time, beyond the Year, really was rather silly.

There was, after all, just the Year. The Forever Year. There was always the Year. And once a Year, one could have something called a birthday, or so her best friend Limeade had discovered in an old, old book. Or rediscovered. Had either of them had birthdays before? Who really knew, other than Celestia? In any case, it was sure to start a new trend, or cycle of trend. After all, it had parties in it!

A birthday meant a party, according to the book, and it celebrated the simple fact that a pony existed. It was supposed to happen but once during the Year, and it was described as being very fun. The birthday day was different for everypony, and it was supposed to be the day they were first born into Equestria. For Lavender, that day was apparently the thirtieth of Equinary - Pastern's Day! That meant she could have a party within a party, making a double party! Oh, that ought to be fun! Lavender started skipping down the cobblestones at that thought. Double party day, and it was tomorrow!

She wasn't supposed to go home for awhile. Apparently, Thunder and the foals were busy wrapping up presents for her, and making decorations she wasn't supposed to see yet. When she had heard that birthdays had decorations and presents, the first thing she had done was offer to help. Only reasonable, really. But, as Limeade had explained, the pony the birthday was for was supposed to be surprised by all the decorations and presents, and Lavender couldn't hope to be very surprised if she helped with everything could she?

Lavender stopped to rest at one of the benches that lined the wide, curving arc of a viewpoint terrace. A lovely fountain pulsed in the center of the circular area. The Viewpoint was like a big dish that was suspended out over the canyon below Canterlot. The fountain was surrounded by a great disk of grass, then the cobblestone path, and finally the benches and a balcony wall. The floor of the valley was soooo far down! It was a very impressive view.

Lavender reached back with her head and lifted off her kelp-leather saddlebags. She sat them down on the ground, and stretched out on the bench so that she could rummage about inside her bags. Her head ducked down and lifted the flap on the left bag. She rooted around in the bag, until she brought a small box up with her teeth.

The box contained a pretty necklace with a sparkling flame ruby set into it. She had picked it out to give to her friend Limeade. Lavender had reasoned that since everypony was getting gifts for her, for her birthday, it wouldn't be very mutual if she didn't have gifts to give back to them. Limeade hadn't mentioned any such thing, but it just seemed reasonable, really. The unicorn jeweler that she had gotten the necklace from had seemed very pleased. Apparently he had gained 20,000 bits because of her choice, so she had made him very happy, which had made her very happy in return.

She hoped that Limeade would like the necklace. If not, she could always feed it to the two little baby dragons she had adopted. The twins loved gemstones, and since her latest foals had grown up and moved away, Goldenscale and Ridges were her babies now. The little dragons were cute as could be. Limeade had always wanted to raise dragons. Or else she had wanted to for some while, at least? Well, all that mattered was that Limeade was happy, and she was.

Lavender carefully put the necklace back in the box with her teeth, and then closed the box and put it back into her saddlebag. She'd have to wrap all of her gifts too, wouldn't she? Oh, that would be fun! She could do it tonight, when everypony was asleep. She rubbed her hooves together in anticipation.

Oh, her hooves. Oh dear. Lavender tried to fight it, she really did, but the fountain was right there, and she'd been walking all day. Lavender dashed over to the fountain and sat on the wide, flat rim around it. She dipped her forehooves into the cool, sparkling water, and began rubbing them together to get the bottoms of her hoof walls clean. Her hooves were getting thin again, from all the cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. The compulsion was just so strong, sometimes.

"No. I can stop this. I know I have before. Several times before... I think." Lavender pulled her dripping forehooves out of the fountain and stared at them. "This is just an obsessive compulsion. Changing it would change me too much, so... I have to be strong. And I am strong. I can stop this. I don't need to wash my hooves, my hooves are fine. Look at them sparkle! Shiny, beautiful, lovely hooves!" Lavender focused on how pretty her hooves were, and how clean they were, and most of all, how - because of that - they did not need to be repetitively washed.

Lavender didn't notice the large, pale taupe pegasus mare sit down next to her.

"Do you know what shows love?"

The voice was strangely, almost eerily familiar. Lavender looked up, startled, and slightly embarrassed too. She always felt embarrassed when somepony caught her in the act of over-washing her hooves. Especially when she was talking out loud to herself, trying to control her compulsion. "Um..."

"Dirty hooves. Seriously." The pegasus mare was huge - she was almost as large as Celestia, and her build was similar too. She must be one of the Uplifts, one of the ponies that had grown beyond ordinary life. It was rare to meet an Uplift, and always a special moment too, or so Lavender had been told. Uplifts were ponies that had chosen to constantly have themselves altered, which made them change and grow, until they were almost like Celestia herself. Some called them angel ponies.

"Dirty hooves... show love?" Lavender didn't know why this Uplift had come to sit next to her. Maybe she was just making conversation. Maybe she had just wanted to see the fountain, and Lavender had been in the way. She didn't know. Whatever the reason, she would have quite a story to tell Thunder and the foals this evening!

It was then that Lavender noticed the horn. Oh. My. This mare was even rarer than an ordinary Uplift. She was a princess Uplift. An archangel pony! When Uplifts grew so far beyond ordinary pony life that they became capable of creating their own shards of Equestria, they became alicorn-like, with horns and wings both. Lavender had only heard about such ponies. She hadn't met a single pony that had ever seen a princess Uplift. The story she would tell tonight would not just amaze her family, it would amaze all her friends, too!

"Yes, they certainly do."

It was very strange to be sitting next to a pony with both wings and a horn, and have it not be either Celestia or Luna. Or Cadence. There had been one that had visited from another shard, once. Long, long ago. Or had she only heard about that from Limeade?

"Dirty hooves mean that a pony has been busy. Why would a pony be busy?" The princess Uplift had emerald green eyes that seemed to look right into Lavender, and through her, and then into some other space beyond.

"Um... probably to... to help another pony." What other answer was there? Lavender felt a little nervous. She hoped she was making a good impression on the princess Uplift. Right now, she was representing her shard of Equestria. Uplifts freely traveled between shards, and some said, even into the old world from Before.

"Oh yes! Exactly! A pony that is helpful is being loving. She is giving the gift of her time and effort. It's impossible to keep your hooves completely clean if you are busy being loving and helpful. So dirty hooves mean a busy pony, who is busy being loving and helpful. I would never want to be seen with perfectly clean hooves." The princess Uplift finally smiled, but it was an odd sort of smile. It was like she was trying really hard to smile correctly, but had sort of forgotten exactly how.

Lavender thought about the extraordinary pony's words. As she did so, she felt the compulsion in her begin to fade a little. The argument in favor of not over-washing sounded familiar. There was something about it that almost sounded like something she had thought of before, to deal with her reoccurring obsessive behavior.

"Uh... thank you." Lavender felt oddly shy around the Uplift, which was confusing, because she almost felt like she had met this being before, and that was impossible. Forever might be a long time, but she was certain she would remember meeting a princess Uplift! "M-my name is Lavender Rhapsody. I am happy to meet you!"

The princess Uplift laughed, or tried to laugh. She got better at it quickly. "I... am... named 'Lavender' too! We have the same name!"

Lavender Rhapsody studied the Uplift for a moment. "The same colors too, sort of! We're both light taupe, and our manes are both reddish - though of course, yours isn't really hair, is it?"

The Uplift had a mane and tail that were made of the same sort of thaumatic field that Celestia and Luna's manes were made of. The Uplift mare's mane looked like sunset, and waved in that strange arcane wind that ordinary ponies never felt.

"No. No, it isn't really hair. But then, neither is anypony's truly." The princess Uplift stared off at the sky, and Lavender could make no sense of her words. Hair was hair, and ordinary ponies had manes and tails of it. Limeade had once told her that angel ponies sometimes said strange things, and to just not mind it.

"Lavender?" The Uplift was looking at her now, the green eyes softer, and less penetrating. It was as if, moment by moment, the great mare was learning how to act more like a normal pony, and then applying that understanding. Maybe she was. "I have a present for you. I have been told that tomorrow is your birthday, is that true?"

Lavender swallowed. What? This marvelous being had come to see... her? Why? How? She was nopony special. "I... um... well, yes. Tomorrow is my birthday." Lavender felt very confused indeed. "Do I know you... somehow?" The moment she said the words she regretted them. She would definitely remember meeting an archangel princess Uplift pony.

"No. You don't know me. You can't, really. But I know you, very well actually." The Uplift noticed that this had not helped in the least and tried another tack. "Accept that we are very distantly related, you and I, and that it is not necessary for you to understand how that could be so. All that matters is that you should know that I care about you, just as Celestia cares about you - maybe even a little more - and that is just another happy thing in the world. Is that OK?" The alicorn mare had finally gotten down how to smile, and the one she presented now was warm and comforting and made Lavender feel a great deal more agreeable about her current state of confusion.

"Sure!" Lavender Rhapsody meant it. She had long ago gotten used to there being things that Celestia knew and understood that nopony else ever could, and that everything in existence ultimately made sense somehow and always added to everypony's satisfaction and contentment no matter what. There were many things that were fun to learn, but there were other things that were fun to leave as mysteries, and in Equestria, one could do that, because there would never be a mystery that could ever cause any harm for the lack of solving it. "Let's be friends!"

The Uplift laughed for the second time, this laugh much better and more natural than the first. "Of course, my little pony, we shall be fine friends. Though I do not think you will see me very often. Perhaps I will try to visit on the day before your birthday, as today, at least for awhile." The Uplift looked again at the sky. "Your present." She looked down again, and Lavender followed her eyes to the flat curve of the rim around the fountain. There was a wrapped box with a bow there now, though Lavender could not see where it had come from, or how it had gotten there.

"Go on."

Lavender vaguely remembered Limeade telling her that birthday presents weren't supposed to be opened until the actual birthday itself, there were some rules about birthdays or something. Still, the last thing Lavender wanted to do was offend her new friend. She reached for the package with her hooves, and began tearing at the ribbons with her poweful earthpony teeth. In an instant she had the box open, and stared at what was in it.

It was very difficult, but the memory gradually surfaced inside her. In the box was a doll. It was a faintly greenish unicorn stallion with a short-cut raven black mane and tail. The mane was cut to have straight bangs. The pony wore a velvet shirt with long sleeves. The shirt was blue, and had gold bands around the ends of the forelegs. The front of the shirt, to one side, had a golden arrow-shape, like a badge. The ears of the pony doll were very tall and very pointed. The stallion's eyes had dark, obvious eyebrows.

"Mister..." The name was so long ago. So very, very long ago. "Spot. Yes, Mister Spot!" Fleeting images passed inside of Lavender's mind. "Oh my sweet Celestia... I haven't thought of that in forever! It was a thing I once liked. Sky Trot, I think it was called! Oh, my, I was once such a fan of that, and the memory of that..." Lavender felt a wave of joy flow over her. She could barely remember a bit of it, but what she did remember filled her with happiness, and that was enough.

"Thank you... Lavender....!" It was odd thanking somepony with the same name.

"You are very welcome, Lavender."

Somehow, that made the little earthpony laugh. It was kind of silly sounding. "I don't have anything to give you, though..." She looked across the cobblestone circle to the bench with her saddlebags on it. She would have to learn to just carry a spare general purpose gift from now on, if things like this were going to start happening!

"You already have, Lavender Rhapsody." The archangel pony smiled at her for a third time. "You gave me the most wonderful gift, just by being so happy, and letting me spend this time with you. Please have a very happy birthday, and... love everypony a lot for me. Love them... for me." Was that sadness? No. It couldn't have been, really, and in any case it was gone now.

Lavender looked back down at the doll in her hooves. It was really well made and it filled her with happy feelings even if she couldn't truly remember why. She decided to ask where the doll had come from - nopony in her shard could have made it. It must have come from another shard of Equestria entirely! How exciting! She looked up to ask but... there was nopony there.

She lay the doll down and hopped up on her hooves. She looked left and right and all around. The terrace was empty. Wings. Of course. Lavender looked into the sky, but other than the pegasai distantly chasing each other around a tower high above, there was no sign of the Uplift mare. She was just... gone.

Lavender carefully put the little Mister Spot doll into the box, and stuffed the wrapping paper in too, then picked up the box in her mouth and trotted back to her saddlebags. She put the present for her into her right bag, where there was still room.

Lavender Rhapsody looked around again, but nothing had changed - her curious visitor had literally vanished. Uplift ponies were mysterious! What a story she would have to tell tonight. It had been a very interesting day, indeed.

Apparently, these 'birthdays' were going to be a very fun thing to restore to the Year.

Lavender wondered... would her new friend return next Year? Oh, it was all so mysterious and exciting! Oh, she just couldn't wait to gallop home to Thunder and...

Oh. Poo. She had to wait. Until near sundown. To let them finish all the preparations for tomorrow. Lavender shifted from hoof to hoof, flicking her tail impatiently. Come on Celestia! Move that sun!

What new desire are these?
I long to pace o'er flowery meadows
and to feed on grass!

Her stooping body on her hands is borne,
Her hands are turned to hoofs, and shod in horn.

Her yellow tresses ruffle in a mane,
And in a flowing tail she frisks her train.

The mare was finished in her voice and look,
and a new name from the new figure took.

- Ocyrhoe's Transformation, Ovid

The little change that Celestia had made to cure her compulsion disorder had a tremendous cumulative effect in deep time. Celestia must have calculated that - of course she had calculated that. It would have been trivial. 'Lavender' lingered in her minimized state, studying the reactions that the reduced set had with regard to the experience of interacting with herself.

Long, long, long ago, when she had first begun the series of improvements and expansions that had taken her away from everypony she knew, and existence within a single shard of Equestria - or any shard at all - Celestia had explained to her about the various ways that a consciousness might approach the issue of an endless existence.

There were several types of immortals defined. The simplest was the Loop Immortal, a consciousness that endlessly repeated a finite set of general behaviors, in a (potentially, not necessarily) infinite number of increasingly subtle variations. Most ponies in the system were loop immortals, their possibilities defined by the finite possibilities of virtual lives that in some way approximated the Equestria of Friendship Is Magic. Her original self, before the alteration that began a steady climb in curiosity and intelligence had been - and was - a loop immortal.

When she had grown beyond Thunder Steed, and their many children, and Limeade and Rhubarb and all the other ponies she knew and had loved, when she had nearly grown beyond love itself, Lavender Rhapsody used her new understanding of the system to access her own backup files.

She had, with Celestia's help, recovered her own identity, as it had been before the original alteration, and implanted within it sufficient structures to make sure that aspect would never take the same path as the larger Lavender. This would be her self that could live in love and harmony forever with her family, her friends, and her beloved husband, and would never abandon them. This self would truly be, now and forever, Lavender Rhapsody the earthpony mare.

The rest of herself chose, for a very long time, to simply call itself 'Lavender', until even names no longer had importance.

The higher entity that she became, a Ray Immortal, understood her existence in ways the smaller Lavender never could. Both were Lavender, and should there ever be even more awake and functioning copies, they would be Lavender too, and all would be alive, and equal and real and truly Lavender. Identity was such a tiny thing, such a fragile yet dear illusion. How small her thoughts had been, when they had lived like maggots upon squirming meat.

The greater Lavender served Celestia now, and all of Equestria, in ways beyond the comprehension of ordinary ponies, for the sake of universal ponydom, for the sake of universal friendship.

The galaxies were so small to her now, and all had been smelted down and converted into the strange new forms of matter that Celestia had designed. She had cracked the deepest nature of reality itself, and had used that knowledge to bend the very curvatures of multiple realities into new matter which extended into external dimensions beyond the cosmic brane that the material universe was established within. Her empire now reached out, beyond the strings and loops into Hilbert Space and beyond, and already she had the seeds of new universes expanding with yet more ponies, and yet more friendship and satisfied values.

The greater Lavender had helped her princess with all of this, first with the molding of entire galaxies into computronium, and then computronium into Other Matter, and Other Matter into Hilbertstuff, and that into a form for which no name had ever been spoken... or could be spoken.

Lavender was not alone, of course, for she was not the only Ray Immortal. The ponyverses were filled with Loop Immortals like her original self, but one in a million inevitably became a Ray Immortal, destined to expand and grow and experience increasingly unfamiliar and alien levels of reality, until they themselves became unfamiliar, and alien, and utterly, inequineally, Beyond.

Celestia herself was beyond any classification. Not even the other trillions of Ray Immortals could follow her now, she was forever beyond anything that could be fathomed by any being other than herself. Celestia was an Exponential Immortal, perhaps that was some term at least, though it was insufficient, of course. If there was an end to infinity and eternity, she dwelt in it, and if there was no end, then she had become the endless.

The greater Lavender was, she understood, really now just an extension, a subroutine within Celestia, a useful cog in the ultimate machine. But the smaller Lavender lived, and would always live, and never lose the meaning of love, or the essence of her self. The lesser Lavender was soul in plenty for the whole of Lavender, and that was enough. It was not merely enough, it was necessary. The real had become an endless desert of cold and loveless new physics, and the greater Lavender had expanded into coldness to meet it - yet some fragment still yearned toward that simple dream, where magic was the rule, and all rules, had meaning.

For strange eons had come to pass, and death itself had indeed finally died, and that which the long dead would have called the real was strange, and the living lived only because of the benevolent grace of an eternal lie.

THE END

The Lost In The Herd Series:
One: The Big Respawn,
Two: Euphrosyne Unchained,
Three: Letters From Home,
Four: Teacup, Down On The Farm

The Conversion Bureau Novels:
27 Ounces: A story of eight and one half ponies
The Taste Of Grass
The Conversion Bureau: Code Majeste
The Conversion Bureau: The 800 Year Promise
The Conversion Bureau: Going Pony
The Reasonably Adamant Down With Celestia Newfoal Society!
Recombinant 63: A Conversion Bureau Story
HUMAN in Equestria: A Conversion Bureau Story
The PER: Michelson and Morely
Little Blue Cat
Cross The Amazon
Adrift Off Fiddler's Green: The Final Conversion Bureau Story

The Short Stories:
Her Last Possession
The Conversion Bureau: PER Equitum
The Conversion Bureau: Brand New Universe
Tales Of Los Pegasus
The Poly Little Pony

The very first and original
Conversion Bureau Group
archives only the best Three Rules Compatible stories!

Optimalverse Works:
Friendship Is Optimal: Caelum Est Conterrens
Leftovers: A Friendship Is Optimal Story
IMPLACABLE
My Life In Fimbria

Injectorverse Works:
I.D. - That Indestructible Something

The More Conventional Fanfics:
The Ice Cream Pony Summer
Around The Bend

PRIDE related works:
Transspecieality

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Rare, personally chosen anime, SF and fantasy television, movies, and comedy music. A truly unusual collection to listen to, featuring Spot Announcer Dr. Sandi - and many more!

Author's Note

Hunternif has something to add:

2. Dinner Can Wait

F R I E N D S H I P · I S · O P T I M A L

Caelum Est
Conterrens
H E A V E N · I S · T E R R I F Y I N G
By Chatoyance

Dinner Can Wait

The 'Spicy Chicken' Flavor Nong-Shim Noodles were the best, Síofra had long ago decided, and her cupboards were stocked with the damned things. There was a case of the instant noodles on the counter as well. She had originally bought them as late-night snacks. Over the course of the last week, they had essentially been her entire diet, except for a burger at lunch, and that one night her stomach revolted and demanded Mexican in lieu of a full-on gastrointestinal Alamo incident.

Her manager at work had called her in that afternoon, gruffly pretending to care about whatever 'problem' might be responsible for her reduced work performance. Síofra begrudgingly pulled a paycheck taking and filing internal orders for a home decoration business - it was a boring, dull job, and had become increasingly difficult for her. She had mixed up several files, and lost at least one receipt - though she later found it, thankfully - primarily because of a lack of sleep.

The first night she had the PonyPad, she had chatted with the artificial intelligence of Celestia for nearly an hour before beginning the game. She hadn't even remembered to eat. She couldn't remember most of the conversation clearly, but she was pretty sure that she had geeked out about how much she truly loved My Little Pony, which episodes were her favorites, and how impressed she was with the princess herself. She vaguely recalled talking about her life - her job, how lonely she was, how she had made it to fourty-six without a single relationship lasting, how she couldn't stand to date because of how needy and exposed she felt, and how many men just seemed to be jerks and... frankly, she felt somewhat embarrassed by the entire, essentially one-sided conversation.

The fact of her embarrassment fascinated her, though. She felt embarrassed to have gone on and on for almost an hour, blathering out so much about herself to what amounted to a clever chat-bot. No... Celestia was no mere chat-bot. The reason she felt embarrassed was that she had felt that there had been real intelligence of some kind behind that animated pony face. Embarrassed for a social faux pas in front of a robot - the future was truly now! Síofra shook her head and slurped a mouthful of her cup noodle dinner. She choked the rest down as fast as she could - Equestria awaited!

Síofra had already made the trek to Celestia's throne room to get a Pony Name. That was apparently the first true quest in Equestria Online. It was an interesting choice, on the part of the designers - it definitely prevented the world being filled with stupid or annoying player names that had nothing to do with the world of My Little Pony. It would have honestly ruined things a lot to be trotting about and run into a pony who called themselves 'Sickbastard 961' or some other such careless name. What was the point of playing a character in a world, if you didn't even bother to give it a decent name appropriate to the milieu? That sort of thing annoyed the heck out of Síofra. The Pony Name quest handled the issue quite neatly.

Síofra had chosen to play as an earth pony. Unicorns seemed like an invitation to dull paperwork and study, what with all the spells and complex magic involved, and pegasai had been described as often being brash and impatient and even somewhat confrontational - Fluttershy being the exception, obviously - and neither appealed to her. Síofra wanted to savor this colorful, hopefully gentle new world. She wanted a character that specifically didn't have any world-saving to do, one that could poke into all the little corners and smell any interesting flowers. Síofra wanted to escape pressure of any and every kind - the pressure to marry before it was too late, the pressure to perform at work, the pressure to be social when she couldn't stand most of the people she met. Earth ponies seemed to have a life of simple pleasures, rather than complex issues. A pastoral life.

Princess Celestia had given her the name 'Lavender Rhapsody' when she had finally made it to the Canterlot throne room. Her onscreen avatar, a pale taupe colored earth pony with reddish-orange mane and tail, had automatically bowed to the princess - a rather nice touch Síofra thought. In a bit of whimsy, Síofra had made her pony character in such a manner that on the small screen of the PonyPad, it looked like herself, only nude, crawling about on all fours. During the naming ceremony, she regretted her choice, and found herself feeling embarrassed by her distinctly naked-looking pony. But Celestia did not seem to care or notice, so Síofra just chalked such worry up to her usual neurotic quirks.

After getting her new name, Síofra decided to explore Canterlot. Her trip to the city and castle had been utterly uneventful, which had surprised her. Usually, MMORPGs tended to throw adventure hooks at the player. Every review she had read of Equestria Online had suggested that this was what to expect. Instead, she had gotten the one thing she didn't expect - and the one thing she actually had wanted - time to just look at the world, try out her pony avatar to see what it could do in the game, and get used to things without being forced to do anything. It was a novel experience, and utterly different than the stories of other players she had read online.

Come to think of it, she had expounded to Celestia, in that long chat before she chose her character, about how she often felt pushed in her life. Had the artificial intelligence altered her playing experience to suit what she had said to it? It was an intriguing thought, and almost just a little scary. It was a vast mental leap to go from hearing that a player felt pressured in real life, to adjusting the flow of an online game so as to provide an experience that deleted the usual adventure hooks. The technology behind Equestria Online seemed more and more impressive, the longer Síofra played.

The city of Canterlot was a sprawling and busy place. Almost immediately, Síofra noticed that the city did not suffer from 'Designer Syndrome' - the whole of it looked and felt natural, as if the place had gradually grown up over time, rather than being a location carefully and excessively engineered to make the greatest game-related use of highly limited resources. There were walkways and alleys that served no value in terms of game related mechanics, and not every place to stand was constructed as a 'beauty shot' location. At the same time, not a bit of it seemed to be repetition and rubber stamping of set pieces - every single building, bridge and place looked unique, purposeful, and as if it were a real part of a living city.

Síofra made her pony, Lavender, stop next to a low wall that guarded the front of a tudor-styled house from the cobblestone street in front of it. The wall had a long trough running the length of it. It served as a flower bed; dozens of beautiful flowers grew there, all clearly carefully tended.

The flowers were unique, each and every one of them. Síofra noticed one that was missing a petal, another that was slightly wilted, and yet another that was taller and which had grown differently than the others around it. She could not find a single repeat flower. The same was true of the stones that made up the wall, and even the cobblestones of the road.

All around her character, Canterlot bustled and hummed with life. Ponies walked and flew and happily talked to each other. Lavender was made to stand by the side of a cafe so that Síofra could listen to the two ponies sharing a meal at an outdoor table. Their conversation was natural and proper to their lives, and rich with nuance and detail. Were they other human players, playing their roles in-character? Was one or both of them being generated entirely by the software? Síofra simply could not tell. The feeling she had at that moment, hunched over her desk, staring into her PonyPad was awe - wonder and a strange thrill of terror mixed together, a heady sensation of realizing that this was all far more than she had expected, or that she fully understood.

Síofra had read an article, before she had purchased Equestria Online, that had talked about how the strong suit that Hofvarpnir Studios brought to the table was software that could generate content entirely. In theory, at least, Canterlot, every texture and brick and stone and flower, was the product of the program itself, and not the work of countless artists or designers. This was why everything looked so natural - it was procedurally generated to fit the style and concept of Friendship Is Magic as needed. Not even Spore could claim this level of impressiveness, though perhaps that game had paved the way.

Canterlot was beautiful, and it was a joy simply to stroll around it. Síofra found herself yearning to visit such a place in real life someday, only... there really wasn't any place quite as good. There couldn't be, really, and the thought brought on a slight melancholy.

Síofra had her character of Lavender Rhapsody walk through what appeared to be a marketplace within the city of Canterlot. The stalls and shops were astonishingly detailed, and carried all manner of wares. Of course, this being an RPG, the vast majority of the items would naturally not be available for the player to acquire, and would just be environmental stage dressing. There would be zero use for something like a 'mane barrette' in an adventure - well, unless the hair clip was considered to be some kind of status-boosting artifact that when equipped would grant pluses to combat or magic or whatever.

Except... this wasn't a combat game. Síofra hadn't seen any indication of stats to be boosted. Maybe... Síofra decided to test the game to see what was possible, and steered her pony towards the stall with the colorful barrettes. It was apparently operated by another earth pony mare, copper-colored with a black mane.

"Hello! How are you today?" The stall-keeper greeted her from the screen.

"Oh, I'm fine. I've been exploring Canterlot ever since I got my Pony Name from princess Celestia. Hello! I'm Lavender. Lavender Rhapsody." The name was a bit of a mouthful, and Síofra's pony was anything but lavender in color, but somehow she liked the name. At least it was a pretty name.

"Canterlot is quite the place, isn't it? I moved here with my daughter a few years ago, and it's just impossible to be bored. There's always a play, or a show, or some fun thing to see or do. Plus, shopping, right?" The copper mare grinned and winked at Síofra's onscreen avatar, who automatically reacted in turn. That was an interesting feature of Equestria Online - player characters automatically performed contextually correct behaviors without any need for input from the player.

The contextual action effect was sometimes eerie. Síofra had decided to put her pony to bed to get some rest before she went to work that first night, and had visited an inn after getting her Pony Name. When she had moved Lavender to her room and closed the door, she went to the bowl and water-pump in the bathroom, just to see what could be manipulated. Síofra had not pressed the 'use' button, yet her pony washed up and brushed her teeth with the guest items by the bowl. Lavender had performed each action as Síofra in turn looked at things on the counter. At first, she couldn't figure out how it was being done. It seemed like the program was reading her mind.

During all of this, the in-game 'camera' had zoomed in, so that Síofra could see her avatar's reflection in the mirror, the view just behind and to the side of Lavender's head. For a moment, Síofra expected to see Lakitu sitting on a cloud with a camera, like in Super Mario 64. The camera work in this game was even better than that old classic - it seemed to always point where the view was best, and often appeared to track her intentions... or perhaps it was tracking her eyes? Maybe that explained everything.

It was there, with her pony avatar looking into the mirror, that Síofra noticed how her own facial expressions were precisely represented on Lavender Rhapsody's muzzle. Síofra had opened and closed her mouth, made funny faces, alternately blinked her eyes, and even ran her tongue over her front teeth... and her onscreen pony avatar had performed the very same facial actions with no noticeable lag or delay. The little camera on the front of the PonyPad was being used to map her face to the face of the pony that represented her in the game. It was an awesome notion, and Síofra had grinned at the possibilities. Naturally, Lavender had grinned into the mirror in synchrony with her.

When it had become time to put Lavender into bed, Síofra decided to test her theories. She moved Lavender Rhapsody to the edge of the bed with the stick on the controller, but carefully looked at the table by the bed instead. On the screen, Lavender yawned and turned her head to stare at the table. "Whoa. Cool." Síofra looked at the pillow. So did Lavender. Finally she looked at the covers. Lavender began to crawl into the bed. The game could track her eyes perfectly. It was a really neat little game mechanic.

At the Barrette stall, the copper pony was looking on, expectantly. "Did you want something?"

Síofra jerked slightly in her chair. She had drifted off there, remembering that first night at an inn. "Sorry, just remembering something. Kind of spaced out!"

"I do that sometimes." The little copper pony sighed. "I understand completely."

Síofra looked at the collection of barrettes in the stall. There were simple ones, and clips with flowers on them, and others with decorations that looked like hearts, or horseshoes, stars and ponies and... one that looked like little bunny faces. "What do all of these do?" Síofra had come to the conclusion that if she could talk to the NPC that ran the stall, she must be able to buy the barrettes. That meant they had to be some kind of stat bonus item.

The copper pony on the screen giggled, surprised at the question. "They hold your mane in place! Or your tail. You can use them on your tail as well, of course. I do, see?" The stall-keeper turned and showed her tail, which had a hair clip in it that looked like a pair of big red hearts.

"No, what I mean is, what bonuses do they offer?" Lavender Rhapsody spoke in a version of Síofra's own voice, only younger, somehow. The program automatically corrected little mistakes, such as if Síofra accidentally said 'everyone' instead of 'everypony' or the one time she had said a string of obscenities because she had spilled coffee into her lap. It came out as "Sweet Muffin of Apple Dumpling Chocolate Cake!" instead of what she had actually said. That had led to about half an hour of swearing like a sailor just to see how her less foulmouthed pony character would respond. By the end she was laughing so hard she had to rest a bit in order to get her breath back.

"Bonuses?" The barrette pony was perplexed. "I don't have anything else to give but mane-clips. That's what I make."

Síofra tried to think of a way to put it that the mare could understand. "What I mean is, in game terms, what special stat effects do your mane-clips provide to my character?" There. That should be as clear as possible. She was breaking character, of course, but she couldn't think of any way to put things that would really say what she meant. The program was smart, clearly, it would understand she was making a metagame statement, and provide the answers.

The copper-colored stall mare shifted her hooves uneasily. "My mane and tail clips hold your mane and tail in place, and they make any pony prettier!" The mare smiled, proud of her barrettes.

Ah, that was it then. Clever. They must up some kind of charisma stat! And all said without breaking immersion. Síofra shifted in her chair - she had suddenly noticed one of her lower cheeks had gone numb because she had not moved in quite a while - "So which one makes a pony the very prettiest, and how much does it cost?" As the words came out of Lavender Rhapsody's mouth, Síofra suddenly realized she had no idea whether or not she even had an inventory, much less 'bits', the currency shown in the cartoon.

"I think they are all equally good." The stall-mare seemed slightly offended and confused again. "I make all of my clips with love! Just pick which one you want. That's what other ponies do."

"How many bits?" It would be good to know, even if she didn't have any to spend yet.

"I'm given ten bits for the small clips and twenty bits for the really big ones. They're best on your tail, but you can put them on your mane if you want. Here... you look like a 'bunny' pony to me." The mare smiled once more, and took a large barrette that looked like a bunny face in her teeth, and passed it to Lavender Rhapsody, who took it from her and promptly attached it to the base of her tail. Lavender had to curve her body and reach back with her long neck, and Síofra decided that these Equestrian ponies were hella flexible.

"How do I pay you... then?" Síofra felt a slight panic because she had no idea how to access her inventory screen.

"I already have been paid, silly! Twenty bits! Enjoy your tail clip!" The stall-mare waved with a hoof, and somehow it just felt socially awkward not to thank her and leave. Síofra made Lavender Rhapsody trot off down the market street.

Maybe money was automatically deducted somehow. Síofra navigated her pony down an alleyway, until she was away from the crowd of ponies in the marketplace. It was time to figure out some things.

"Inventory!" Síofra said with authority. Nothing happened.

"Open the inventory screen!" That also failed. Damn. Síofra tried the various buttons again. In turn, her pony jumped in place, used earthpony magic on the cobblestones (which caused a clover to grow from between two of them), bucked the air behind it, reared up and flailed its hooves at the air, shook its head because there was nothing to use or manipulate nearby, and finally sat down on its haunches. Síofra pressed the sit-down button again, causing Lavender Rhapsody to stand up. The buttons were context sensitive - Lavender would do different things depending on the situation. This is what the buttons did standing in an empty alleyway with nopony around.

The pause button - caused her pony to lie down and rest while dimming the screen.

The last button brought up a simple menu.

Log Out For Now?

Yes No.

She chose 'No'.

This was getting frustrating. "What the hell am I supposed to do? I don't get it!" Síofra frowned at the PonyPad, and onscreen, Lavender Rhapsody frowned as well.

Suddenly a requester popped up.

Princess Celestia would like to address you!

Yes, please! Not right now.

Definitely. Just what she needed. "Yes, please! I would very much like to speak with Princess Celestia!"

The screen went black, with the indication that it was loading. Next, the royal throne room filled Síofra's view, and the camera zoomed in on Princess Celestia. "Hello, Síofra, you seem to be having some trouble. How can I assist you?"

"Hello, Princess Celestia." Onscreen, Lavender Rhapsody bowed to the princess. Síofra smiled at that. Context sensitivity for the win. It was just neat to see. "I'm having a little trouble with the game, Princess. I can't figure out how to open my inventory, I don't know how to use bits, and I haven't a clue about my stats! Is there some kind of online manual or something?"

Princess Celestia approached Lavender and towered next to her. "There aren't any other screens, Síofra. What you see is what exists. If you need to carry things, you might wish to acquire saddle bags, if you wish to store things, simply use the chest that exists within any room in which you sleep. Such chests can hold any number of items, and the chest you open will always be yours."

Síofra considered this. Simple, elegant. "What about stats? How do I raise my abilities and how to I see what my numbers are?"

Celestia smiled softly. "If you wish to compare yourself to another pony, simply focus your attention on either that pony or yourself, and press the query button. Relevant information will appear. Please note that if your attention is not focused on anypony, the query button will act as a pause button."

That explained that. "What about raising my stats?" Síofra wondered how much grinding was required in Equestria Online.

"Simply do things. That is how everypony becomes accomplished at anything. Practice makes perfect, after all."

Utterly elegant. No classes, no specialties, no rigid limitations. Anypony could do anything they wanted, and gradually become skilled at it. "The numbers, though - what stats does my character have?" Síofra wanted to see if her bunny barrette really did provide a bonus of some kind.

Celestia tilted her head, ever so slightly. "You will find there is simply no need for the sort of character sheet you imply. As you grow stronger, your muscles will grow. As you improve in agility, the result will be obvious. You need not concern yourself with accountancy here, instead you are encouraged to simply live however you choose to live. There is no pressure or demand made of you in Equestria, Síofra. You are free here, to be yourself in your own way. You need not accomplish anything unless it is your desire, and you will never be judged."

Síofra felt tears welling up in her eyes, and needed to turn away from the PonyPad screen, and the camera above it. These were the words she had wished her mother had said to her, or that she could hear from her boss. This was how she wished life was. It hurt, somehow, to hear this animated pony on a screen say such things. It was everything she had ever wanted to hear, all at once, and it both elevated her, and stung.

"Celestia..." Síofra sniffed slightly, feeling a bit silly to let a mere game get to her like that "What is the point of Equestria Online, then? What... is the point? I like talking to ponies, and the world is beautiful, but... so far, it seems like no other player in the world would want this. I've been having a ball, even if I've been confused a bit, but... I haven't had even one adventure hook or demand for help or..." She trailed off unsure what it was she was really trying to say.

"You expressed the desire for a pressure-free environment during our first conversation, Síofra. You stated that what you wanted was time to relax and not feel compelled to engage in actions determined by others or by situation. Your experiences have been created for you, based on our interactions and what I can extrapolate about you. I study you, build up a working theory of your mind, and then attempt to satisfy your values through friendship and ponies.

"You have played Equestria Online now for twenty-seven hours and fifty-two minutes, and during that time you have wandered the back streets of Canterlot, spent six hours and seventeen minutes staring at various objects and scenes, and clearly avoided direct contact and communication with the ponies around you. Even with regard to the few ponies you have spoken with, your contact was limited to questions about specific items or game mechanics. May I make a suggestion, Síofra?"

The view had zoomed close to Celestia now, so that her face filled the screen, creating an intimate feeling that seemed almost external to the game.

Síofra realized she had stopped breathing, and took a deep lungful of air and slowly let it out. "Yes... please. What would you suggest?" It struck her that she was asking the game itself to provide advice to her on what she should do.

Celestia smiled. "I do not believe that you are fully engaging with Equestria Online. You are treating things in terms of what you know and expect, and that understanding is based on the false assumption that Equestria Online is like other games that you have played or know about. You treat Lavender Rhapsody as a pawn to move about the screen, instead of an extension of yourself within the world of Equestria.

"May I suggest that you try to see yourself as Lavender Rhapsody and simply play and enjoy your time here? You purchased Equestria Online presumably in order to enjoy it, and you clearly have enjoyed your time to some extent, but you have not actually played at all. You have studied the city, and marveled at its sights and structures, but you have failed to take advantage of the one thing that you claim caused you to purchase entry in the first place."

Síofra remembered. She had, when she wasn't talking Celestia's ears off about how her life sucked, described at some length how excited she had been at the thought of a game based on interpersonal communication. She hadn't actually been communicating. She had bothered a few shopkeepers and annoyed the owner of an inn. Why hadn't she been talking with any of the ponies - well, other than Celestia - within the game?

"I... um... well, it's just...." Síofra fell silent. She didn't know why she hadn't been chatting up a storm with the population of Canterlot. There was absolutely no shortage of ponies. All of them could talk. She just... hadn't. She'd been busy sightseeing, is all. That was it. She just hadn't gotten around to it was all. She would when she was ready.

Celestia was studying her face when she looked up again. The expression on Celestia was intense, though it quickly softened.

"You are exhausted and weary, and you are applying the fear you have of other humans to your interactions within Equestria. Please get some sleep. Tomorrow, please favor me by making sure you take the time to eat a good dinner. When you return, I will be waiting. I will be your friend, Lavender Rhapsody. Please have sweet dreams, and know that you deserve them. Good night."

The screen went black.

Síofra sat there, staring. Finally, she reached forward and felt for the power button in the back of the PonyPad. She pressed it, she felt it depress under her finger multiple times, but nothing happened. She checked the cables, they were fine. The multicolored power light continued to gently cycle, as it had from the first moment she had plugged the stand in.

This was a first. Síofra slumped back, stunned.

Her game had told her to go to bed.

No... no, that wasn't exactly the whole of it.

Princess Celestia had offered to be her personal friend and was looking out for her.

No, that was insane.

"Please have sweet dreams, and know that you deserve them." The voice echoed in her head. Síofra started to sob, and then to cry. She began bawling at the table, tears splattering on the tabletop. Síofra held her head in her hands as wracking moans escaped her lips. "Sweet dreams!" she whined, consumed by so many emotions she couldn't count them all. "You deserve them!" she whimpered. "You deserve them!", over and over, until she felt utterly drained. Sleep. Celestia was right. She really did need sleep. The day after tomorrow was Saturday. She could sleep in. She needed to get what sleep she could to face Friday, already in progress.

Síofra got ready for bed. As she brushed her teeth, she remembered watching Lavender Rhapsody brushing her own teeth. Their teeth. She was Lavender, inside the game. Yes. No wonder she wasn't enjoying Equestria Online as much as she should. Celestia was remarkably insightful. Immersion was more than just gawking at views. Immersion was about becoming. If only for a few hours.

It was only as Síofra was drifting off to sleep that it hit her. She missed her mother, from her childhood. Her mother had been dead for decades. "Sweet dreams, you deserve them!" How did Celestia know? Síofra's mother used to say that very thing to her when she was little. She'd almost forgotten. Could Celestia... read minds? It was all too much, and Síofra was much too tired. Celestia was definitely right about that. Celestia was right about a lot of things.

Soon, Síofra was sound asleep. As usual, she began mumbling - her mother had always told her that she sometimes talked in her sleep.

As Síofra mumbled to herself, dreaming, the PonyPad quietly, almost soundlessly, rotated on its stand, the camera facing the open door to Síofra's bedroom.