• Member Since 30th Mar, 2012
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Airstream


By windward strides and holy ghosts, what rests beside the barren coasts?

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Inspiration is Rarity's Element, and Sweetie Belle her greatest achievement. But the filly has questions, ones that Rarity might not be able to answer on her own. What makes a pony? How can somepony know if they really are alive? Are they alive if they laugh and cry? Are they alive if they think, if they make mistakes and have ideas?

If Sweetie Belle is nothing more than a collection of wires, is she truly alive?

Spanish Translation now available through this elegantly crafted link!

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 338 )

My God Sweetie Bot is awesome.

Oh my god this is amazing.
Sweetie Bot is best Filly-robot.

Isador #3 · May 24th, 2013 · · 1 ·

This was amazing. I loved every minute of reading this story. Do you think that you might write more set in this universe?

I have no words. None at all.

This was beyond excellent.

~Skeeter The Lurker

I love the way that you looked at Rarities first dresses and thought "hey, maybe they were robots?"
Ingenious :pinkiehappy:

Very nice. I love the twist on Rarity being a cybernetic engineer, it fits just as nicely as dress making with her personality.

Oh, my. That was excellently done. And very neatly encapsulates the sort of questions a self-aware robot is likely to have, too.

This is great on a oneshot, but the AU you've built with just one chapter has a large amount of potential. I would love to see the differences in the other elements as well.

That is. If that's alright with you.:fluttershysad:

Excellent work! Really enjoyed this story, would love to see more like this.

I loved this story. Short, sweet, and moving all at the same time.

I wonder though, how would sweetie grow? How would they size her up to mimic age, let alone a cutie mark. I expect she couldn't get one naturally.

i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/087/427/Slow-Clap.gif

That was such a touching story. You sir, have earned yourself a follow. :scootangel:

Thanks.
Just... thanks.

I like how Rarity's what she always should have been here: Inspiration.

this feels like a direct counter to background pony.
a wonderful melancholy type of sadness, with a feeling of hope and gratitude. beautiful. noting more. nothing less.

Too... Much... Cute Sweetie-bot...
*Explodes, then reforms*
IGNORE THAT...

Wow.
This is really beautiful story. :heart:

Why would you ever build sensors beneath the skin to detect pain? Seems like wasteful design to me, as soon as the skin is breached the construct should know that it is damaged and refrain from using the damaged leg.

2624800
Added realism.

2624800

Why do animals have sensors beneath the skin to detect pain? We can detect that our skin in breached and refrain from using the damaged leg. However, knowing something and feeling that it really hurts gives you a greater drive not to do stupid things like walk on a damaged leg, and real animals (including people) can do spectacularly stupid things without the right motivation.

Do I have permission to cry?

Well, that was amazing. See this everyone, this is what a one-shot should be. I could ask for a series for this, but this story doesn't need anymore, the lesson is enough.
(10/10, would read again. Sweetie Bot is my favorite fanon character.)

-Mis

2624667 Until Jeff Bridges enters the net and destroys the M.C.P. (Master Control Pony), gathering the data to prove he was the original creator of the M.L.P. (Matrix-Like Plot) in the first place. :rainbowlaugh:

traje de flamenco

It's "flamenca". If it ended in an "o", it would mean it was for a male, and that would be ridiculous.

Also, I'd like to point out that the name Minuette is already taken. The pony nicknamed "Colgate" by the fandom is actually named Minuette.

It was an interesting story. I would be serious and all except for this line which initiated T.S.C. (Troll Sequence Compulsion) in my CPU (Cerebral Punification Unit).

>>>and the audience with Princess Celestia to offer her a jester made of clockwork and amethyst,>>>

Clockwork jester, eh... You mean something like this?

2.bp.blogspot.com/-68ZBwSGFpMU/TZTNU6Q2f1I/AAAAAAAAAC0/qFrF9y83di4/s1600/D.png

:trollestia:

What's so nice about this is it very simply outlines the differences between a mere computer and a living machine.

A living machine will be able to think in the abstract, consider potential beyond its current limits, imagine random thoughts and then act upon them in physical conditions.

It will be a new form of life, a conscious mind without an organic body and force us yet again to reexamine what life is.

For we think of bacteria and plants and many other organisms are alive, yet they possess no mind at all.

I have always felt that sapient life is a truly higher form of life, one that has taken a step beyond merely being a metabolizing, reproducing biochemical machine. As such a thinking machine will have gone beyond its own material composition.

And then we get "Ghost in the Shell"... :raritywink:

And it turns out the world is going to love her, so she doesn't need to teach it to fear her instead.

2625000

Then the extra sensors still wouldn't make sense. The reason animals etc have nocicereptors (pain nerves) is indeed because we are quite dumb and tend to forget when we are hurt. However, a mechanical construct has near perfect memory.

Even if the actual simulated personality is just as dumb and forgetful as we are a simple memory chip that remembers skin breached locations is a lot cheaper and more efficient than implementing thousands of extra sensors. Just have the memory chip send a pain signal to the simulated brain whenever it tries to move the afflicted leg and you have the exact same effect as we experience.

Besides, don't you think it is quite annoying that we have pain nerves? Yes, they evolved to help us. But an ability to shut them off is highly useful. That's why doctors invented anesthetics. For a robot the ability to switch off pain should be much easier. It seems needlessly cruel to have Sweetie Belle suffer if Rarity could simply disconnect her pain sensors for a few seconds.

This is beautiful in so many ways.

2625265
It could be an unintentional side-effect of Sweetie Belle's sentience.

I think a certain truly sentient Geth construct with the designated codename Legion would love this story.

I really really really liked this.
But when I read the last chapter...
It's like in public school when the teacher says, "The last paragraph of an essay should be a summary of everything you've said before." And it really made the whole story fall short.
I think this could have ended with "And really, wasn't that enough?" The last chapter is very distracting...and a really good story like this needs a strong ending.

2625552
It could also be why we have pain receptors beneath our skin, so we know what other than our skin is damaged, even if the skin is not. It is actually easy to damage tissue beneath the skin without doing much damage at all to the skin. Houdini was killed by a punch to the gut that did not leave a bruise. In several types of robot, especially those that are shown on robot wars, damage to underlying components often happens before the outer covering layer is damaged in any noticeable way. So having pain receptors under her skin would make sense.

sweetie bot in here? im in!

Sweetie Bot is the best Robot.


I've been dying to read a Sweetie Bot fic and I'm happy that I finally got to see one. The ending was meh. But up to the last paragraph it was awesome, and I'm glad that she got a happy ending.

*in which Bronyman1995 kicks himself in the foot for not going with the idea of science Rarity in Iron Mare*

This story was awesome.

You were able to tackle the subject of free will AND what makes someone human all without seeming preachy or heavy handed.

I TIP MY HAT TO YOU SIR.

2625250 dats what i was finkin (i dont know why but i feel orky tonight:facehoof:)

It's a lovely story, with only one discordant note, for me.

> “Legend has it that Celestia and Luna made the first ponies out of clay, clouds, and stars..."

Why, oh why? That was like a sudden dash of cold water in my face. :raritydespair:

This was..... AMAZING!!!!!!!:heart:

Cogito!
Ergo, sum.

Heh. Not so bad, friend! It's a curious idea--Sweetie Bot and Rarity as a scientist. I almost want to try it.

Feels, D'awws, and Laughs. This was worth my time. A pity I can't vote for it more than once.

Feels at the repair, d'awws at Sweetie Belle's reaction to Minuette, and laughs when she asked to use Rarity's make-up.

2625000
At the risk of repeating everyone else. :P Learning is essential to survival among other things. It would do us no lasting good if we simply stopped using the leg until it was better. We could bang ourself on the same spot over and over and suffer continually. By recognizing the source of the pain, we can avoid it. Besides, by, say, realizing that fire burns and causes injury we can yank our hand out of the fire, before irreparable damage occurs.

In the context of the story, an autonomous robot cannot depend on a handy repairman, and so it would be best to be avoid catastrophic damage itself/"instinctually".

P.S.
Sequel, please? :twilightsmile:

I'm going to try and will that tag from Complete to Incomplete now. Wish me luck.

I like your Rarity, a lot. :raritywink: The whole scientist thing fits well, surprisingly, with Rarity. If there was a more futuristic version of MLP your Rarity would be a deadringer for it.

2626286

Maybe because Minuette taught the lesson?

... And THAT is why Sweetie Bot is best Pone, Crusader, and Bot. Period.

2625132 You know, that would actually make for a good fic.

P.S.: That means write it NOW, since it was your idea.:moustache:

Comment posted by Moon_Fire deleted May 25th, 2013

That was an amazing and detailed explanation of a great question. It was beautifully written. I think I'm gonna keep an eye on you.

Element of inspiration? An interesting concept, do you have the others in mind? Is this a one-shot, or will we be seeing other related projects? I can see that there is potential for a world beyond these words, but I'm not sure if you built it, or if it's an illusion cast by convincing words.

I feel silly saying these things.

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