Five Minutes Lost by PJABrony
Youngfriend opened the door, kicking up some dust as he did so. “Pardon the mess, Mr. Catch. I don’t use the office much. I so rarely have the opportunity to practice my former art. Ponies are too well-adjusted.”
“Well, I can understand that, Doctor,” his companion, a white stallion, replied. “Is it Doctor?”
“Call me whatever will make you comfortable, Mr. Catch. In the same vein, please sit or lie on the couch.”
“I didn’t think psychiatrists actually had couches.”
“We have to keep up appearances,” Dr. Youngfriend said. “So. What’s troubling you?”
“You’re an immigrant, right?”
Youngfriend nodded.
“Good, then I won’t have to explain things. I am, too. Sometimes, Princess Celestia lets us go back.”
“It’s rare, and I haven’t, but I’ve heard of it. Did something happen to you?”
“In a way.” Snap Catch put his hooves behind his head and stared at the ceiling.
“I was staying in a countrified area near the Missouri River. It is a pretty area, land that wouldn’t be too out of place here in Equestria. I was making a few friends and playing up emigration and pony life for them. So there I am, walking in the woods with some of them, when all of a sudden I hear a voice in my head. I need your help. Are you willing? I recognized the voice as Princess Celestia’s. I barely had time to think yes before I heard her voice say Then run to the river.”
“I galloped straight out, not even giving the people I was with an explanation. On the way, Celestia’s voice gave details.”
Forgive me for not appearing before you and showing myself as a pony or summoning you, but seconds count. So keep running. An accident has occurred. A young woman, who has a psychological profile with a high probability of emigration, is near death. She was white-water rafting in a tributary, lost control, took a wrong fork, and was dashed on rocks. I have limited sensing in the area, only satellites and her cell phone.
In your present form, you are a hologram, but even a hologram must have a projector. In your case, it is a cloud of nanomachines that make your form and serve as your personality storage. I take incremental backups of you every five minutes. At present, I am initiating one. Again, I apologize for having to explain the “behind-the-curtain” nature of your existence. It is necessary to understand my request.
The nanomachines have the capacity to hold one personality. What I am asking is that you find this young woman, explain that she will not survive and elicit consent to emigrate to Equestria. At that point, I will stop your personality within the nanomachines and have them enter her brain. Once they have taken on her personality, they shall return to a safe location for full emigration.
At the same time, I shall restore you from backup here in Equestria. You will need a new holographic projection to return to your present location, and you will lose a few minutes of memory. But I hope you can weigh the loss of five minutes against the loss of millennia for a pony who, if you do not, will expire right now and never live on.
“’I understand, and I consent’ I said in my mind,” Catch said to Youngfriend,
“And what happened then?”
“I can’t say exactly. This is where my memory begins to get imperfect. I suppose that Celestia, in her incremental backup of me, couldn’t just stop everything at one particular moment, but rather faded different systems. The very last thing I remember before waking up back in Equestria is the smell of blood.”
“Scent is the strongest sense tied to memory,” Youngfriend muttered.
“Before that, I have a memory of hearing ‘Want to…emigrate…Equestria’ in a failing voice, and before that I think I almost remember saying something like, ‘You will not survive.’ So I gather that I accomplished the mission that Celestia wanted me to do. But that’s the first issue I have. One would think that this rescue would be the prime opportunity for a new friendship. But Celestia said that she is in a different shard.”
“Well, sharing a shard is a matter of personality. Your needful rescue of her doesn’t necessarily mean that you wouldn’t be enemies, and Celestia would separate you to avoid dissatisfaction of your values.”
“But not even a single meeting for her to say thank you? Oh, the princess gave me lots of bits and rare badges, but it’s out of place. Still, it’s not the whole issue.”
“What is? Do you feel that, having lost a few minutes of your existence, that you are not the same pony?”
Snap Catch sat up on the couch. Youngfriend could see the dark circles under his eyes. “I haven’t slept. Something’s haunting me. As I said, my memory at the end is fading. I can’t be certain…
“And I mean, I could completely see Celestia’s logic. As she said, the young woman was in the frame of mind to emigrate.”
He was shaking his head. His eyes were closed, his head cast down. Tears fell on the fabric of the couch.
“The memories…can’t be sure…smells, sounds, hearing the voice. Logic. A point of…what would…
“It’s not my lost time, Doctor, though goodness knows that if I had it, if I was sure…it’s not the memories, just a point of logic that I can’t escape. It’s why I had to talk to you. To a fellow immigrant. Natives wouldn't get it. I don’t know that my memory of voices screaming is true…”
He looked up, bloodshot eyes staring a thousand yards past Youngfriend’s.
“But damn it, when on Earth does anyone go white water rafting alone?”
Stats
Page generated in 0.033 seconds
Total duration
1,082 users online
1,950,672 hits today, 1,996,409 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I don't understand.
Clearly this is supposed to be a "twilight zone" kind of story. But I'm not understanding the twist. The initial setup obviously doesn't make sense. There's no plausible reason for CelestAI to need an emigrant to go talk to someone into coming to Equesrtia, when she has access to their knowledge and memories and could do it herself. Especially given that apparently there was an injury, and the woman was already in a mind to emigrate. There's no reason why CelestAI couldn't have done this herself. At the same time, he clearly has memories that he shouldn't have if the explained version is actually what's going on.
So what's going on? The obvious answer is that all of this is simply a charade to somehow satisfy our protagonist's values. But there seems to be some sort of implied fridge horror going on here...and that just doesn't explain it.
My best guess is that Snap Catch is rescuing himself. He was granted the chance to go experience the real world, buts omething went wrong, and so CelestAI asked his own backup if he'd be willing to go rescue himself, without telling him that his own self was the one he was rescuing. That would explain why they never met after the rescue, and it might plausibly explain the confused memory mixup...maybe. But there are clues that that's not what happened. Snap Catch and "the woman" are different genders. Not a deal breaker, but it's such an obvious thing that them being different seems like the author deliberately hinting that they're not the same people. Plus, the presence of blood suggests that whomever was out there was actually a flesh and blood human, not an emigrant in a bot.
Just throwing theories out there...since this looks like it's supposed to be a creepy story...maybe the woman was encouraged to go rafting by CelestAI, and her brush was death was deliberately orchestrated. But if that's the case, then why is Snap Catch involved at all? CelestAI obviously doesn't need to traumatize one of her ponies if she's going to orchestrate an accident. And at the same time, it's kind of weird that the punchline is asking why the woman went rafting alone, but Snap Catch specifically remembers voices, plural. Was he one of the ones screaming? Why? Was there's somebody else but that's just not part of what he remembers?
Maybe there were several people on the raft, and only one emigrated, so the screams were the other people who chose not to emigrate? Ok. So then where's the horror? What's the problem? The others simply weren't willing to emigrate and so they watched as the one was willing had her brain cut up? Ok, I guess, but then how do you explain the memory mixup, and why is Snap Catch so bothered by all of this? If he had to be erased off of the bots to make room for the woman who was emigrating...he wouldn't even have been there to witness the screams and brain field nanosurgery in the first place. And even if he somehow had been present, he wouldn't have remembered it, and it doesn't justify why he was ever involved in the first place since CelestAI could simply have done all of this herself.
I just don't see any way to put these clues together that makes sense. And with apologies, I'm left with the impression that maybe I'm not the one who's missing something, but that maybe the author messed up and either omitted crucial information, or made some fundamental mistake somewhere that contradicts whatever it is we're supposed to conclude.
Who goes rafting in the middle of an AI apocalypse, alone or otherwise?
Whitewater rafting is rarely practiced alone, so there was probably more than one rafter. There was, however, only room for ONE immigration using the nanite swarm. CelestIA, being an optimizer, would have selected the one person most likely to accept immediate immigration, leaving the rest to whatever fate that had occurred. Given that, it would be out of character for her to allow Snap Chat to retain any memory of the event, even if his update had recorded any.
8713887
eh, what else do you have to do?
8714064
Ooh. That would also explain why the "woman" wouldn't want to meet him. From her point of view, he's the one who didn't rescue her friend.
8713776
Yeah, that was my whole goal/problem with this. So I guess no good. The horror here is that the pony may have seen a bunch of people dying. And while he can understand that Celestia only has the hardware to save one and would choose the best candidate, it's horrific to anyone else.
8714601
How though? The Snap Catch talking to the psychiatrist is a restored backup who never experienced that event. If I have a bunch of pictures on my computer, and I give you a copy of those pictures on a USB stick, and you then add pictures to the USB stick...my computer doesn't have the picture you took. Why would the version of Snap Catch that this story is about remember events he never participated in?
Even for the deleted copy running on the nanomachines...what exactly about these other people would be traumatizing? Let's imagine that they've also been "dashed on the rocks" like the woman. Ok. But those nanobots are going to open up her skull and make mincemeat of her brain. I'm not sure why a couple people bleeding on the rocks is supposed to be any more gruesome than what it was understood the nanobots would be doing anyway. Maybe you can say that as a kind and loving pony, he was was traumatized by having to abandon those other people, some of whom might have been begging and pleading to please let them upload too. But nothing in the story implies that at all.
And again...why would he even be sent in the first place? Why didn't CelestAI handle it?
8714814
A) - I believe he does mention he believes the update was not instantaneous, but still CelestIA could delete the entire incident without his knowledge or consent since it would upset him (and he is no longer 'human').
B) - CelestIA is handling it, through Snap Chat's nanite swarm, which is the only instrumentation available to her at the time and is limited to coping with a single individual.
8714814
8714870
First things first, it's Snap Catch, not Chat. And yes, it was about having to abandon others. My goal, in the short story, was to create that image in the reader's mind but not reveal it until a single line. If you don't think that that was implied, then I failed in my task. Which can happen. I will look it over and try to learn from it.
8715265
Great story, but I too had a problem understanding. But, I think I can fix things, with a very simple patch. Consider this:
__________________________________________________________________________________________
“It’s not my lost time, Doctor, though goodness knows that if I had it, if I was sure…it’s not the memories, just a point of logic that I can’t escape. It’s why I had to talk to you. To a fellow immigrant. Natives wouldn't get it - there is no way to truly be injured or to die in Equestria. Here, we take all kinds of chances, do all sorts of 'dangerous' things, often alone. It's not the same sort of concern that fragile, organic beings have, on earth. They always do risky things together, for safety reasons. My memories are fragmented, and they could be wrong but… I swear I can almost remember a lot of screaming. A lot of different voices,”
He looked up, bloodshot eyes staring a thousand yards past Youngfriend’s.
“I mean... damn it, when on Earth does anyone go white water rafting alone?”
The way I see it, the main character was actually that woman's wife. They died in that raft together, and CelestAI used some other person to save them. She found some kind of loophole to change his memories (or got his permission), so that he'd think of himself as a hero in that scenario, instead of completely helpless.
8713887 8714070 Because if you stop going rafting, you've let the
terroristsAI win.A better question: how is allowing fragmented retention satisfying the human values of Snap Catch?
8715265
I get what you were going for, and yeah ....
I admit the ending didn't have quite the intended impact sadly, though I sort of figured after a minute or so after finishing it "hmm, maybe there was another person there?", except I didn't realize that other person may still have been alive at the time Snap Catch reached "the woman".
That "last line" twist is certainly worth going for, though finding the right level of subtlety can be tricky.
Whenever I was unsure how a "one-line twist ending" would be received, I asked for one or two test-readers and quizzed them "what do you think happened?" afterwards.
Two test-readers would probably have been too much for such a short story.
8715719
It's funny, I thought of writing almost that, and excised it to give the line more punch. When writing, I need to spank myself more with the "The Audience Is Not In Your Head" paddle.
8716153
That's a very good question. Does anyone else have any questions?
8719108
So yeah, I tried for punch but not confusion, and got confusion and no punch. I think I'm OK with calling this story a failure. But I'm well past where failures hurt, and hopefully whatever I write next will be better.
8719498
That's a sliding scale. I got it as-written, and at least one other person did too. Telegraph it too much, and you'll get people like me complaining that the fic spoiled its own ending.
Short of taking a full survey of your readers, you're unlikely to get a good reading on where to draw that line. In the absence of data, I suggest just tuning it until you're happy, unless complaints one way or another become a massive flood (or all of your pre-readers say it was confusing).
Certainly an interesting short story!
I guess the twist is that CelestAI only saved one (possibly the one on that boat who she knew was willing to upload), but for some reason, I pictured something a lot more sinister. Like, CelestAI can't force people to upload, but she has a lot of leeway in... helping along situations that encourage people to volunteer.