Red Kryptonite
My friend PeachClover wrote a fascinating blog which puts the nature of the Equestrian ponies into perspective with relation to the human race. Over the past years, I have written well over a million words of fiction concerning the conversion of humans into ponies, and those who call this transformation a horrible mutilation do so on the intellectual grounds that, quote - "Humans: FUCK YEAH!"
There is no question that ponies are superior to humanity in every respect. If the three breeds of My Little Pony were represented as Marvel or DC characters, they would fall firmly into the superhero camp. Earthponies would be like a blend of The Hulk and Poison Ivy. Pegasai would essentially be Superman minus the beam powers. Unicorns would be The Invisible Woman mixed with The Sorcerer Supreme.
What then, if the Conversion Bureau scenario were reversed, and ponies were forced to escape to Lifeboat Earth, and become human beings, rather than the normal way, with humans becoming ponies?
Red Kryptonite
By Chatoyance
The future 'John Jones' waited in the metal-fenced corral, trying to stay under the shelter of the rain cover of the hay feeder. The humans were doing their best, but some simply had a difficult time relating to Equestrians as a sapient, technological species. Because they vaguely resembled earth equines, many of the Conversion Camps had been built as if for the use of dumb animals. There were just so many Equestrian refugees, and so little time... but that was an excuse.
Luminous Brilliance shook his head, his sodden mane flopping wetly against his neck. The humans could have put them up in proper trailers or tents, but they often didn't, primarily because Equestrians looked like animals to them. Humans were just that way. They weren't used to any creature but themselves being intelligent. Indeed, they didn't even treat each other with respect. For example, they had trouble with their own variations in coat color - not that they had coats. Human hides were bare skin. Differing hide colors were considered cause enough for different treatment.
Luminous was a unicorn. One of the finest students of thaumaturgy in Equestria, he had been scheduled to join the Royal Unicorn Corps under Comet Tail herself. For the fiftieth time, Luminous cast a spherical shield over the shivering refugees around him, and then began re-weaving the thaumatic drying cantrip he had worked out in his head while eating breakfast.
The rain poured down, running off the shimmering magical shield. A pegasus mare thanked him as the warm, desert air from Luminous' spell dried her in seconds. As he repeated the process on a young earthpony colt, Luminous saw one of the human 'wranglers' that had been brought in to manage the refugees frown at the use of magic. Magic wasn't technically allowed - it wasn't illegal, but they had all been informed that the use of it was considered exceedingly inappropriate.
Apparently, some of the human creatures had very strong beliefs about magic - even though their universe was utterly barren of it - and considered any use of it evil. They believed in some strange Discord-like entity called 'Satan' who supposedly was the source of all evil... and all magic. Many humans had fought against allowing the Equestrian refugees onto earth. There were entire civilizations that had proclaimed death to any 'satanic or magical creature' that set hoof on their land. Most of these countries were 'Third World' nations, parts of humanity that were ignored by the more powerful, technological humans.
No, not ignored. Exploited. Luminous tried to wrap his vast intellect around the concept again. Earth was a 'dog-eat-dog' world of competition. Everything was based around scarcity and possession of material goods here. It was a very difficult thing to comprehend. A life was considered important in relation to how much material wealth an individual owned, or controlled. The greater the material wealth, the more valuable the life, and the individual.
It was because earth was in a universe where matter simply didn't grow back. A rock was all there was - you couldn't send earthponies to turn the rock into a mountain. There was only so much, and that was all there would ever be, and it was against physics here to create matter from nothing. It just couldn't happen, because there was no magic.
The rain shield failed. Again. The only magic came from what was left of Equestria, and it was fading. Equestria was collapsing, shrinking, imploding into nothing. A small gateway permitted escape, and it was through that door between dimensions that magic still flowed. The flow became less by the month. Even if he were not scheduled to be converted today, humanized, Luminous was keenly aware that it would not be long before the horn on his head would be useless.
Zephyr Whisper stumbled out of the FEMA Emergency Humanization Conversion Vehicle - a large trailer set up on the grounds - and promptly fell down trying to navigate the steps. Zephyr had been a pegasus, one of the fastest and strongest Luminous had ever known. Once, to meet a cloud quota for his town, Zephyr had created a tornado to lift water into the sky from a holding pond. This in and of itself was not unusual - it was the job of Pegasai. Zephyr had managed the task solo. Flying round and round, the brawny pegasus pony had emptied the pond after everypony else had given up. Later, exhausted, he had crashed face-first into the ground and had to be dug out.
He had survived with only a stiff neck.
Luminous - JOHN! He had to get used to the new name. John, John Jones. Normal name. Human name. John closed in on the side of the corral near the exit of the FEMA trailer. "Zephyr!"
"Get back! You'll be converted shortly. Where's your number?" The uniformed human attending Zephyr left him in the mud to deal with the arrival of the wet unicorn. He began searching Luminous with his eyes, while waving a forelimb to try to get the unicorn to turn around.
"I'm here to see my friend, Zephyr, behind you. I want to make sure he is alright. He fell down. Help him!" Luminous watched as Zephyr tried to stand up on his new hind legs. His strange new limbs slipped out from under him, forcing him to crawl on all fours.
"Get back to your group!" The human was pointing at the cluster of Equestrians near the feeder. "Go. Back."
"Now see here, my friend is foundering in the mud! I'm just here to greet him. If you would just help him to stand, I would..."
"Do I have to use this?" The human put a hand to a holster, in which was a device that sent some strange earth-force through wires. It could down even the strongest earthpony, and sometimes even stopped hearts. Luminous didn't yet know all of the strange energies of this new universe, but he did remember one thing. The 'electric' force the device used was transmitted by water. If the human used his weapon in such heavy rain, he would likely hurt himself too.
"Sir, if you would just listen..." Luminous saw Zephyr slowly, laboriously manage to stand on his hind legs. His simple, orange body-covering was soaked with muddy water.
"I won't repeat myself! GET BACK IN YOUR GROUP!" The human's flat face was red now, and it's teeth were partially bared. Luminous recalled that this indicated anger and preparation for violence. He backed slowly away.
Briefly, Luminous considered casting 'Mystic Window's Curious Calm' on the human, but decided against trying. A glowing horn would likely frighten the creature so that it would immediately use its electrical device. Humans were very quick with the shocking-boxes. They were surprisingly fast with their forelimbs.
"Luminous!" Zephyr yelled through the driving rain. "I can't fly!"
Luminous felt puzzled as he slowly, carefully stepped back, constantly under the watch of the human with the hand on its holster. Of course the former pegasus couldn't fly. No wings. No magic. This was understood.
Zephyr turned his flat, brown, fleshy face toward the retreating unicorn. Zerphyr's eyes seemed wild, terrified. "I'm weak! Really weak! I can't fly and there are no smells anymore!"
Luminous had heard that before. Converted ponies often complained that their new human bodies were effectively scent-blind. The ears were a problem too - they couldn't be moved, and the range of sounds were very narrow.
"PRINCESS! ...Celestia... I should have stayed. I should have stayed with you!" Zephyr was crying now. The tears were invisible in the downpour, of course, but there was no mistaking the wracking sobs.
The human attendant had turned its attention to Zephyr now and was trying to make the former pegasus move away from the conversion trailer. Luminous stood in the middle of the field, and watched as the human half-carried Zephyr to the large recovery tent.
"Just one more flight. I was a foal... a FOAL..."
And then Zephyr, the proud pegasus, now a strange, almost hairless human, was dragged from sight.
Luminous stood, still smelling the alien fear and anguish that had poured from his friend. The scent was mingled with the fear, anger, and frustration of the human attendant. Even in this world, Luminous' pony nose still worked. The attendant had eaten flesh and vegetable matter, and drunk some grain-based beverage that had been fermented. He had been in close contact with some kind of burning, noxious plant material. Before he had been forced to back away, Luminous had sensed the scent of a female human on the attendant, from a mating the night before.
All of that would be gone, apparently. Human senses could barely pick up the qualities of food. They marveled when they could smell a flower.
Luminous decided to partially levitate back to the group by the feeder. The attitude of the human attendant had angered him, and he was in no mood to restrain his magic. The ground was solid mud, the rain was fierce, and it was only reasonable to reduce one's weight by a factor of twenty so as to walk on the surface of the water that flooded the field. Luminous barely registered the angry frown of the helmeted compound guard as he rejoined his group. Apparently, walking on water was somehow an insult to these creatures.
The solar princess had stayed in Equestria, with Discord, recently reformed. The two had intended to save their universe, or die in the attempt. Discord and Celestia, united, working as one. Zephyr had desperately wanted to stay, to try to help, but there was nothing an ordinary pony could do. Luminous had worked hard to convince him to escape to the earth. Cosmic matters were for cosmic beings.
But, the thought did cross one's mind. Even if it was hopeless, Luminous could understand the wish to stay. Better to spend one's last moments walking on a cloud, filled with the glory of magic and wonder, than to stumble as a dim, half-blind creature through the mud of a wonderless world.
"GROUP THREE! GET IN LINE FOR CONVERSION!" The voice from the conical horn on the side of the FEMA trailer was horrifically loud, and the ponies by the hay shelter jerked in pain. The human world was a very noisy one for sensitive pony ears.
Not a problem for much longer, Luminous - John - got to remember the name, 'John' - ruefully thought. Soon, sounds and smells would be as humans sensed them.
As Luminous joined the line of refugees leading up to the conversion trailer, he tried to imagine a life without magic. Instinctively, his horn began to softly glow, and he saw with inner sight the world around him. Equestrians stood out like beacons, the complex pattern of their thaumatic couplements dancing within their flesh. Where the earthponies had taken steps or stood, patches of magic glowed on the ground, a trail of hoofprints. There also the grass grew lush, flowers bursting rapidly from the water and mud. Earthly life briefly given the gift of magic, the plants were intensely bright of hue.
The humans used fire machines to burn and 'decontaminate' such patches as soon as they could. In the rain, the enchanted plants would remain until things dried out. Luminous bent his head down and nipped off a gigantic dandelion and chewed it, savoring the complex flavors. Some earthpony had stood and the flower had grown in seconds. Supposedly most humans went to bed hungry every night. If only earthponies could keep their magic, this harsh world could be fed in moments.
But Equestria was collapsing. When it was gone, the magic would be gone, and ponies used magic like humans used air. They required magic to remain alive. Cut off from all magic, Equestrians died, of thaumatic strangulation. It wasn't just that pegasai couldn't fly without magic, or unicorns cast spells - pony biology depended on magic to function. Without conversion to a human form, nothing of Equestria would survive the implosion. Nopony would remain to remember a world of glory, a world where ponies walked on the clouds or grew forests in days. A universe of abundance and Harmony.
The earthpony mare in front of Luminous - John, John! - was next. Luminous could smell her terror and desired to comfort her. "It will be alright. We have to survive. Celestia has commanded it. It will be alright."
The mare could not hold back her sorrow. "I used to make fields of corn every day. I really like corn, see, my cutie mark?"
Luminous nodded at the mare's flank. Three ears of corn, red, yellow and blue.
"Every day! A whole field. A whole field. Acres and acres." The mare was being prodded with a pole. A human warned her to keep moving.
The mare was in the trailer now, and the metal pole was being used to push Luminous back. "Easy there, big fella! Nice and easy. Just stand there. You'll have your turn."
It was the horrible kindness of it. The human was talking down to him, trying to be nice. But he was talking as if he were speaking to some kind of unintelligent creature. As though he were trying to calm an animal without language, an animal incapable of intellectual discourse.
For a moment, Luminous felt his temper flare. He wanted to tell the human that he was a Grand Master, Third Rank of Thaumaturgy, with a degree from the Equestrian Academy of Magical Studies. That he was in line to assist the great Comet Tail herself, that...
Luminous felt his ears go flat against his skull, as he hung his head.
"There we go! That's a good boy!" Luminous could smell the change in chemicals through the human's skin. The sharp tang of stress and worry had been replaced with a flood of whatever humans secreted when they began to relax. Reading them had become routine now. The human was probably smiling.
There was a commotion in the Conversion trailer. The earthpony mare was yelling, crying. She didn't want to lose her magic. She didn't want to go through with the conversion. The side of the trailer suddenly bent out, the metal forming a cone around where a single earthpony hoof had impacted. The entire vehicle had shaken, and the few windows had shattered from the blow. More shouts and repeated sounds of the electrical weapons. When the shrieks and yells had stopped, angry voices set about work.
Luminous forced himself to not move. It was everything he could do not to just let loose. If he had chosen, he could have used his telekinesis to lift the trailer, open it like an egg, lift out all the humans and the mare, and set them in proper order. He could have laid low any human that dared to challenge him, pressing them into the mud with multiple disks of magical force. He could have lifted the distraught mare into the air, covered her with a dome of force and dried her, calmed her with a spell, and set her down.
And then what?
It had happened once. A member of the Royal Unicorns had lost control. He had not approved of evacuating to earth. He did not approve of humans. Somehow, he had felt deeply insulted just before his conversion.
When all was done, more than a dozen humans had been injured or killed. Some has been floated up into the air, to dangle like dolls. Others had been partially changed by magic into pigs and goats. The entire building had been opened up like the petals of a gigantic flower, the steel beams bent away from the center by the true power of a unicorn unbound.
And then the soldiers had opened fire. They had machines, little things made of metal that used tiny explosions to send smaller bits of metal at very fast speeds. The little bits of metal ripped through almost anything.
They felt they had to do it. It was true that Tagtail the Obsequious had gone mad. His specialty was medicine, but he was powerful in every respect. He had become dangerous they had said.
They didn't understand magic, of course. Tagtail could have reversed the transformations, he could have lowered the suspended humans. But it frightened them, and it should have really - even in Equestria, acting out that way would have terrified anypony. But in Equestria, the penalty would not have been death.
The soldiers had fired, and killed everypony - and many humans - in what was left of the building. They were frightened beyond their ability to cope.
Lifting their large, armored tanks into the air and rotating them in a circle as shields probably didn't help matters either. Tagtail went down, they said, still trying to lower the tanks softly, because he had realized that there were humans inside the huge metal objects.
Luminous was finally told to step forward. He tried to ask about the mare, but was told to shut up. The humans were upset. They had reason to be, really, they were just trying to help, and now their FEMA trailer was bent outwards. Before he was driven up, into the damaged trailer, Luminous saw a small human girl, unconscious, dressed in the plain, orange cloth that Newmen were given to wear. A burly man was carrying her out the back of the trailer. It must have been the mare. They had rendered her harmless, and converted her.
The humans were just trying to help. They had been generous, taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees from an alien universe. They had worked with princess Luna to implement the conversion serum. She lived on earth now, still a pony, her very life blood the basis of the transformation process. She had promised to keep the supply coming until every last Equestrian that could be saved had been, even if it meant she would die when Equestria finally collapsed completely.
She was already weak, they said. Transparent, like her mane, only all over. Fading, with the vanishing magic. Some believed she couldn't be converted, and that she knew that fact.
"Now you're not going to give any trouble, are you?" The weary conversion team leader looked at Luminous with red, tired eyes. The red-haired human medic had been at the job for more than eighteen hours. Luminous could tell, because he smelled the chemical in her blood that humans made when they were weary and stressed. There was a lot of it, and the scent filled the trailer. To Luminous, it was almost visible, it was so strong. It came also from her staff, another woman, and a man.
"I will not cause any trouble. I promise." Luminous wondered what his voice would sound like coming from a human throat.
The woman nodded and tried to smile. She wiped her forehead and straightened her glasses. "Lynn, you have the dosage ready?"
The dark-haired woman turned, holding a syringe in her hand. "Three ounces, injectible." She handed the syringe to the red-haired woman.
"I'm going to inject you, in the flanks. Do not kick or move! It will not hurt. You will fall asleep, and then you will change. Be still! Do you understand?" The red-haired woman motioned to the man. "Alexi... I want you ready, just in case."
Luminous tried to control himself. The humans were trying to help. They were all trying to help. Without them, every Equestrian would die. But becoming human was terrifying, Luminous suddenly realized. He had not fully grasped the matter, not really, not until this moment.
This was not a reversible transformation. In Equestria, Luminous had grown up transforming objects, animals, and other ponies. As a colt, he and his friends used to transform each other for fun. They would spend a day playing as ducks in the water, or as birds in the air. Later, as he gained mastery, he could give himself magical wings and visit the cloud cities of the pegasai. That was where he had met Zephyr.
It was all reversible. Magic done could be undone. That was always the rule - well, except for Starswirl's famous unfinished spell, of course - but this was permanent. And once it was done, there would be no more transformations, no more magic, forever.
"Excuse me." Luminous tried to speak as calmly as he could. Subtly, he sent force into his horn - not enough to make it glow, no, subtle force - and broadcast a general spell of tranquility. Temperance's Propitiate of Imperturbability, it was called. It was usually used on predatory animals in the Everfree, or in the jungles of the Griffon Empire. The humans calmed immediately.
"I will be utterly cooperative, but this is my last moment as myself. Please, allow me just a minute, just a moment to do one last work of magic. Just a small, thing, a pretty thing. After this, magic will be no more for me, you see."
The three conversion medics and the four armed soldiers nodded, completely under the calmness spell. The team leader, the weary red-maned woman almost smiled. Perhaps she needed something to cheer her thankless day.
Luminous thought, briefly. One last magic. One last work of art, before all the colors were gone, all the paints dried up, and even the hope of wonder forever lost.
Comet Tail's Bird Of Stars. When she was young, before she had become old and frightening, three or four - and some said five - centuries in the past, Comet Tail The Intractable had not been stern and humorless. Once she had been a filly, and known love, and laughter, before duty to the crown made her grim. And in that age, that long lost era, Comet Tail had seen something in the night sky, some wonder of Luna's, and it had inspired her to simple beauty.
Luminous poured his grief and his joy, and his memories of his beloved magical land into his horn, into the carbuncle beneath it. His many centuries would become less than one, as a human, his senses limited, his hearing dull, his nose all but useless. Gone would be his fine coat and his beautiful tail and mane. His ears would become flat as his face, and he would lose his strong hooves for fragile hands. But most of all, he would lose forever his magic, his beloved art.
The bird took form, sparkles collecting in the middle of the air. As it spread its wings, shimmering with feathers of pure, concentrated diamonds of magical force, wonder and awe washed over the humans in the FEMA trailer. The power of the Bird was that it could link hearts and minds, transmitting and sharing a commonality of joy and amazement at the beauty of life. The expanding field of sparkling light became a dome, growing in size.
As the Bird took flight, the walls of the trailer became transparent, and the world could be seen through them as if they were made of glass. Glass too became the bodies of human and pony alike, as the Bird flew up into the darkening dome.
When it reached the zenith, the Bird exploded, like a firework, covering the illusion of a night sky with sparkling stars. The stars gleamed like diamonds, and yet this was nothing to the emotion that flooded every heart within the now vast dome.
For a brief, yet strangely eternal moment, human and pony alike knew, in the depth of their being, the passion of a young and powerful unicorn mare of five hundred years in the past. For a timeless time, the splendor of Luna's night burned within them, the last glimpse of a universe where love was a law of physics, and friendship was a universal force that had the power to literally shape reality itself.
As the spell faded, and the walls of the trailer became dull and opaque once more, tears came to the eyes of the soldiers, and the conversion staff openly wept.
The human stallion, no, man, was very plump. He wore a strange form of tack around his neck, a length of fabric that was tied in a knot, and which hung down his upright barrel. It was red, and lay against his overstuffed and ill-fitting shirt. The man was friendly though, his name was 'Charles', though he preferred to be called 'Chuck'.
Chuck had processed Luminous after his conversion. Luminous had allowed the red-haired doctor to inject him, and he had fallen into a sudden and dreamless sleep. When he awoke, his first impression was of feeling as if all of his senses were clogged. His ears felt deaf, his nose numb. When he opened his eyes, he was briefly startled by the ends of his forelegs. They looked as if they had been horrifically injured, reduced to five strips of hairless flesh clinging to a stump. He found he could wiggle the strips of skin, they were called fingers.
Chuck had explained that he was there to help the Newmen adjust to their lives. "I'm sort of your own personal Ellis Island! Oh, I guess you wouldn't know that reference, actually. Duh."
Apparently, Chuck's job was to give each Newman a card with many numbers and letters on it, including a new name. Chuck got to choose the names. Luminous would not be called 'John Jones' after all. Instead, Chuck picked a different name for him.
"Let's see... let's see, we've run out of those... hmmm... Oh!" Chuck smiled, then gave a laugh. "I know, I know! I'm gonna give you a great name. Sam. You're going to be Sam. Sam Francisco! Get it?" Chuck the human man smiled.
Luminous shook his strange, round head.
"Oh, it's from a television program I loved. Oh, it's perfect. You're an alien, he was an alien... someday you're going to see it, and BAM!" Chuck grinned. "You'll remember your old pal Chucky!"
Luminous tried to shrug, but his ears wouldn't move. No matter how hard he tried, they just sat there, flat against the side of his skull. It was very hard to focus on sounds. He had to move his whole head, turning it from one side to the other.
"Okay, then..." Chuck was finishing printing out the special card, the identification and citizenship card, that 'Sam Francisco' would need to carry for the rest of his short, human life. "Here's your ID card, always keep it with you. You'll need to get a wallet and... oh, there's lot's of stuff you'll need. There's classes for Newmen, so take advantage of them. You'll need a job, of course, Newman support only lasts six months, then you're on your own. Job... job... what'd you do, back in ponyland, anyhoo?"
'Sam' tried to take the card, but he kept dropping it. It was very difficult to coordinate fingers properly. There were a lot of them, and they all moved, and he wasn't sure which ones to use to pinch together. Chuck showed him how the big one was separate from the other four, and how to pinch things using the big 'thumb' and the first finger. The others, he explained, were kind of for support for the index finger. Just keep practicing.
"I was a tenured professor with a degree in Thaumaturgy. I taught advanced spells and cantrips, and did research into ancient draconic magical devices. I was part of the Bevelmeiter studies group. I was also in line to serve under Comet Tail in the Royal Unicorn Corps." Sam tried to express pride, but wasn't sure how to do that in his new body. He didn't have a tail.
"Ah... well. I see." Chuck frowned. "There's not much call for that in these parts. I'll put you down as 'unskilled'." Chuck turned and wiggled his fingers on some kind of buttons set into a thin tray on his desk. There were a lot of buttons, and the human's fingers worked so fast that Sam had a difficult time following their movement. It was hard to imagine ever being able to use his own fingers like that.
"You'll probably have the most success in the food service industry, being that you are the scholarly type. Humanification usually turns out Newmen that have the same physical development as their pony counterparts. You don't look like the heavy labor type." Chuck moved his fingers on the clicking buttons some more. "Maybe we can place you at a McDonald's or a Tim Horton's or something. There's a program for that, I'll put you in it." More clicking.
Sam sat, trying to not drop the little square piece of plastic that was now, apparently, his identity in the new world. The little rectangle had a picture of his new face. It was horrifying, and strange. It looked like a hairless diamond dog with a big, protruding nose and small eyes sunken into deep sockets. The head was round and his mane was a mess of dark, short hair that sat only on the top and back of his head. Not a bit went down his short, weak neck, or withers. If he even had withers anymore. But the worst thing was that there no horn anywhere on his new, human head. Magic truly was dead for him. The one thing he was truly good at, the one thing he loved above all else. Gone, forever, with the loss of his unicorn horn.
Everything seemed small, and dim, and weak about his human body. The biggest shock came when he had needed to use the bathroom. Sam had hurriedly pulled his lower clothing up over the tiny, shriveled horror that had replaced his once proud stallionhood.
Sam no longer felt male anymore. He felt as if he had been turned into some kind of neuter being.
Chuck had left to get more papers printed. Now he had returned. "Hey, don't look so sad! It's a new life, a new world! Whole new planet to explore! I don't know, is Equestria a planet? I heard it was a Place, in all capital letters and all, whatever that means."
Sam tried to smile, but he found that he couldn't. His new, human brain couldn't just get happy when he wanted it to. He couldn't cheer up, no matter how hard he tried. He felt wetness on his new, utterly bald cheek.
"Oh, come on now, it isn't that bad. You're alive, aren't you?" Chuck thought for a moment. "I know!" Chuck sat down behind his desk again, and began rummaging through drawers. "Aha!" Chuck pulled out a rectangular block of thin sheets. "Deck of cards, Sam old boy!" Chuck began to shuffle the cards. "You were a unicorn, right? Did all that magic stuff. That's what you taught, wasn't it. That thauma-stuff!"
Sam nodded. At least nodding was familiar. Pony or human, nodding was the same.
"I know how to cheer you up! I can teach you how to do earth magic!"
Sam started, his eyes riveted on Chuck. Hope. Finally, a shred of hope. Supposedly this entire universe had no magic at all, no miracles, no spells, no afterlife, nothing. Just physical laws that didn't care. But Chuck claimed that there was magic here after all. Magic! Oh, sweet Celestia! Tears came to Sam's eyes, and ran down his cheeks. He found himself smiling, grinning in expectation. This seemed to make Chuck very happy in return.
"That's the spirit! Knew it would work!" Chuck grinned. "Okay, Sam! Pick a card!"
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Also, if you intended the symbolism of the name "John Jones" beyond just the fact that it's a common name, then my hat's off to you. It's particularly appropriate that Luminous is not allowed to take a name that would essentially mean, "God is glorious and I am his child."
Anyway, I need to try to relieve this feeling with some comedy:
Sam--he still couldn't get used to the name--walked into a bakery. No place really smelled like Equestria, but the bakeries at least triggered his scent memory. There, if no place else, he could pretend he was still home.
"Can I help you?"
Right, he thought, they won't give me the smells for free. I have to buy something.
"Good morning, my friend. Could I please have one of those fuckers?"
"I beg your pardon?!" the baker asked.
Sam raised his hackles, or where his hackles should be. Apparently there was something wrong with asking for the tasty baked good. Maybe he'd be better off with something smaller. He moved past the oatmeal raisins and pointed, proud that he remembered to extend one of his 'fin-gurs.' The longest one, so the baker could clearly see. "I mean, let me have a half dozen of those pieces of shit. With the goddamn chips."
"You got a problem, buddy?!"
Oh, dear. Sam was only making it worse. Even though the baker called him buddy, Sam could tell that she wasn't being friendly. Why was he having so much trouble? The potion was supposed to have fixed the language centers of his brain, which was why he happily used the new words he'd learned for the things in a bakery.
There was only one possibility. The baker was trying to upsell him and wanted him to buy something larger. It was early for a glacée dessert, but Sam just wanted something sweet. "All right, I'll have that tit."
"WHAT?!
"Two tits?"
"Just get out or I'll call the cops!"
Back on the street, Sam sighed deeply. The baker, still scowling at him to move on, placed a long, sweet-looking strudel in her window. Sam stared at it and spoke out loud. "Oh, I haven't had that in such a long time. That's what I want more than anything, when it's bursting with flavor, I'd give anything just to get my lips around a big, long, fat--"
Well, at least Sam Fransisco found some friends that day.
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Hee! That is a fun little story - I didn't even think to add 'humanisms' into the vocabulary in place of 'ponisms' - which seem to all be pastry words. Well met and clever!
As for the name thing - I put a lot of thought into most of my character names. Central characters always have double or triple layers of meaning to their names - from Alexi's full name translating to indicate he is half-Russian, to Petra Bettencourt ending up a petra-fied statue, to Gwen Boik being the 'pale lady of the books'. I can't remember all the others at the moment. Too much to remember. But yes, I put far too much thought into character names.
But then, a name is a powerful thing.
wow... This is dark... sorta. It gives one a lasting heavy feeling, enough to tempt me to join pjabrony, I think the other way is better. human to pony usually leaves a happier and more satisfying feeling.
And now I has a sad. Not least because Earth is headed for some trying times itself, so I don't know if this conversion actually "helps" many.
3222717>>3222823
This has been my definitive answer to those who, in the past, have called me evil for thinking of our ponies as better, and a more desirable state than that of being human. This is my answer to those few spite-fics that would humanize our ponies, and those who would condemn the Conversion Bureau as a mutilation and degradation of precious... humanity.
By flipping the view honestly, as I have done here, I put paid to any statement that pony life and human life are equivalent, and that it would be, in any respect, just as good to be human as to be a pony.
In short, ponies rule, humans drool, and this story is my logical proof of that simple equation.
3222836 Though when I think about it. TCB's Earth is in tatters and about to collapse in on itself right? Doesn't seem like much of a place to escape to. I think I'd prefer to stay in my homeland and die than go to another world entirely and die in the not-to-distant future.
3222854
This short story takes place in our world, more or less today, not the future of the TCB... but whatever the case, Equestria is better. That's pretty much my point.
3222465
Huh. And here I thought it was just a reference to the Martian Manhunter.
In any case... wow. Yeah, Earth kinda sucks compared to a quasi-utopian fairyland of infinite plenty and wonder. But then, almost anywhere sucks compared to a quasi-utopian fairyland of infinite plenty and wonder. Hopefully the combination of heightened population pressure and the desire to recapture some vestige of flight will reignite the space race, since this Earth hasn't quite gone to shit yet. Dreams and memories are harder to kill than magic when magic isn't available to kill them.
Also, what happened to the other races of Equestria? The dragons, the griffins, the diamond dogs, are they all just consigned to the cosmic scrap heap?
3222964
My friend, the space race is done. Aside from nationalistic dick-waving, commercially viable satellites, spy sats, and whatever robotic missions we can launch with what funding is left, nobody in power cares. Getting a population into space would have required a massive, war-economy style build-out starting back in the 70s. We've lost most of our heavy lift technology, and the expertise and physical plant behind it. We'd have to start almost from scratch now, and governments are cutting funding aside from the above categories.
No, those of us who grew up being told stories about going to the stars were sold a bill of goods. Manned space flight is not commercially viable, so private industry isn't going to do it (vacations for millionaires don't count for obvious reasons), and the governments have "more important" things to worry about. And given the rate at which we're burning through our high-density energy sources, the window of opportunity for our species to do so may well have closed.
3222998
Well, that's what I get for trying to find a light at the end of the tunnel. Turns out it was an oncoming train.
This story makes me want to dig out my decks of cards and re-learn all my old card tricks...
I'm going to bet that working on two stories at once with the flu cannot be easy.
This is one of the single most depressing stories I have ever read
I guess now I can finally read Code Majeste as it could not possibly be more depressing than this was.
3222998>>3223045
The problem isn't just money. When explorers sailed across the sea, every man among them knew that there was a decent chance he would die and never see his home or his family again. But they went, because life at home sucked bad enough. We refuse to pay a tax in blood today. Maybe, when the resources run so low that we can no longer feed everyone, the pressure of overpopulation will push us out into space. Maybe.
3222998
THANK YOU.
This is a topic about which I, as someone who watched the first moon landing with hope in my heart, is very angry about. People going on about how Man will reach the stars are utterly clueless, and that cluelessness is part of the problem itself.
THANK YOU.
3223803
When the resources get that low, we will have already passed the point of Zero Launch... we're basically there now. The problem is we no longer have the resources and expertise for space. Used it up. Burned it up. We needed those wars. We needed to make money off oil instead of converting to a new energy source. We needed to build tanks instead of spacecraft. Those old space engineers... are in retirement homes now.
That is why America depends on Soyuz Brand Space Capsules from Russia. Because it can't do space anymore.
Zontargs is right. Space is over. And the window to reach the stars is basically over. Humanity is a ground-pounder now. The universe... is Earth. And that's getting used up fast.
This is why I write 'escape to Equestria' stories.
The writing has been spray-painted by vandals on the wall.
3222998
That's a rather depressing solution to the Fermi paradox.
3224064
Forgive me for being rather less pessimistic, but doesn't it only follow that America's window to space is over? Empires have risen and fallen many, many times in humanity's history. We may have been the first nation to set foot on the moon, but the fact that we have given up does not by any stretch of the imagination imply we must be the last.
The end of oil does not mean the end of energy. It is cheap, easy chemical energy. Humanity needs energy, and therefore we shall take it. When oil is no longer cheaper for companies to exploit than other forms of energy, they will abandon it as a matter of simple economics. When oil costs $20 per megawatt as a source of energy and solar power costs $150 per megawatt, companies will use oil. When scarcer oil costs $200/MW and solar remains $150/MW, they will use solar power.
Call it stupid optimism if you will, but I think that, regardless of how bumbling and foolish humanity may be en masse, there are enough clever and creative humans out there to drag the rest of us along behind.
3225973
So... where are the humans going to get the fuel to dig up the rare earths required to make the new solar infrastructure that will replace the entire planet's current basis for energy? That's a big project to provide fuel for.
And in the same vein, where will they get the rare earths themselves, even if there is still enough petroleum to dig, smelt, refine, and then manufacture that new global solar technology? They did find that new deposit off Japan, but it isn't large enough to do the job.
The true problem is resources. Everything is running out at the same time. And that is the window that Zontargs and I have been talking about.
If you don't have sufficient petroleum, you can't dig, smelt, refine and manufacture solar technology. If you don't have rare earths, you can't make electronics, which means you can't make solar technology. Did I mention silver is running out too? It is. You need that for soldering connections.
It is entirely possible that the Fermi paradox is solved by species giddily using up their surface resources in trivialities, thus trapping themselves on their homeworlds until some extinction level event finishes them off.
That... is why I am pessimistic. It may already be too late to switch to solar, and nuclear is a joke: not only does it leave death as a waste product... the world passed peak radium a decade ago. Radium is running out - at least any humans can easily get to.
That leaves... what? There's still a little coal left, but Steampunk is not going to get Ape to the stars.
I honestly think the humans may have spent their space colonization allowance already, on tanks and fighter jets and giant skyscrapers and huge empty cities and long commute times. Hopefully the humans enjoyed those things.
Personally, I would have picked space colonies, but that's just me. There's more resources up there. In space.
Oh well.
3222998>>3223803>>3224032
We weren't ready for it the first time. Saying space is "over" is like saying computers will never take off because Charles Babbage didn't get people interested enough, or that people will never use airships again after the Hindenburg. New things never stick on the first try, and the limits of our world never were (consider astrology) and never will just be Earth because the rest of it affects us to much to be ignored - Not only through the kinds of natural events that pelt unsuspecting Russians with broken glass, but because, through satellites, it's already at the core of so much we do. Space will get settled and developed and explored because it would be an adventure and we're curious about it: We can't stop thinking and talking about goddamn space, and we won't indefinitely ignore an obsession that temptingly unfurls itself overhead every single night, any more than we'll stop trying to extend our lives because it didn't work for the alchemists or Ponce De León. It doesn't matter if there's no rational reason we can currently see to do it; people are just as likely do do things for romantic, irrational reasons, from lust for adventure, or to shape new lands in their own image, or for self-aggrandizement as the bigshot who made it all happen.
In any case, people think about things differently and have different attitudes in the future, because they've done the work to actually have new ideas that solve problems, which we can't predict beforehand because the thinking of them is doing that work. There are too many different possible ways to meet our needs, none of which are inherent in particular resources, which have never been the ultimate limiting factor because resources aren't things themselves but just our ideas about what things are good for, and which people constantly recombine because they themselves want to live in a better world and make a name for themselves as heroes who helped make that possible, or just advance their careers, adding up to thousands of subtle, unglamorous little changes that slip under the radar until people start saying "Wasn't everybody worried about X? What happened with that? Everyone knows it's Y that's going to kill us all, because it's really our time that's the privileged era where it all comes to a head, our problems that are the hardest and so awful they'll take everything else down with us, and our sins that truly beg for punishment." This could certainly be the case - If there's an end, somebody has to be right before it - but it seems unlikely we're the specially chosen era to hit the wall, instead of being somewhere in the middle and just muddling through like everyone else.
3222964
For sure - The game is kind of stacked. I'm still partial to this universe, though, because it has so much potential for growth and change and variety and complexity, while Equestria is "cooked" and will just be like that forever. And because its workings are biased towards human-like creatures instead of being perfectly impartial towards everything within it, it's much harder to harness them like a blank canvas to build something entirely novel that leaves that all behind. If they'd appeared 1,000 years ago it would be an even more extreme contrast, but Earth after another 1,000 years of civilization is still much less unlikely and fantastical a world, and could very well stack the game in the other direction.
3225973
Two concepts here are key: energy density, and energy return on energy invested (EROEI).
We run our cars on gasoline or diesel because they are energy-dense. You can pack a whole lot of useful energy into your tank. Battery powered vehicles have been unpopular (among other reasons) because the storage density of batteries still sucks compared to hydrocarbons. You need to dedicate much more mass and volume to holding useful energy.
Liquid hydrocarbons are great for energy density. That's why we use them so much. But there's a limited amount. Sure, we can find more (up to a point) or make substitutes (which aren't as good), but then we get into the other problem.
EROEI describes how much net energy you can get out of your energy source. Back in the early days of oil, you just poked a hole in the right patch of ground, and oil came out. Even after refining, you got over 100 units of useful energy out for every unit of energy you spent getting at it. Now, with all the deep drilling and whatnot, it's down to 20:1. Tar sands are 5:1, oil shale is 3:1. You can see that we'd need to spend 20-30% of our energy budget just to make more energy with them. Corn ethanol is (optimistically) 1.4:1, so you'd get less than 30% of the energy to use for something else; the rest goes to making more ethanol. It's the Red Queen's Race: you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in place. Trip once, and you're done.
Renewables tend to be on the low density, low EROEI end of the scale. They cost a lot, they don't store well, and you're not going to be doing super-exciting things with them. And if you're spending 30% of your energy budget on energy, you don't have the surplus money, energy, or manpower for things like space.
3226206
(Did you mean uranium?) Well, if we had said "damn the risks" and gone full-bore on plutonium-breeder reactors, we'd be able to use that to fuel other reactors, and nuclear would be sustainable for millions of years. But between nuclear weapon proliferation fears, Chernobyl, and now Fukushima, that was never going to happen. Plus, we still have the problems of resource extraction, etc. with electric rather than petroleum-based equipment, which means butt-loads of batteries, or busbar and cable, which only works on a small scale. It'd have to be plentiful but crappy battery tech, rather than the latest rare-element stuff we're doing. Probably wouldn't have worked well. For the other readers, note that the same objections, plus lots more, exist for an all-solar/wind/hydro energy economy.
3226260
That's a passionate explanation of why space exploration should still happen. I'm not seeing a lot of how it can. You can't build an interplanetary ship out of wood and let the wind carry you, like we did centuries ago to explore the world. You need a high-tech, high-energy society, and while you can offset one with the other to a degree (slide-rules and big-ass rockets to get to the moon, for example), there's a hard limit there. An IQ of 1000 and wishing real hard won't cut it. On top of that, you need a lot of surplus energy. If we're spending most of our energy on survival, or even non-space parts of the economy, we're not doing anything more than tossing a few robotic probes at stuff. Getting the thousands of people and tons of support equipment off-world you'd need for a self-sustaining colony is very energy-expensive. You have to produce the ship and fuel. How? Coal is wrecking the climate. Economically viable oil and gas are running out. Nuclear is verboten. Fusion is a pipe dream. High-efficiency solar and wind require a lot of rare elements. Where is this energy going to come from? Space? Second verse, same as the first.
3227585
You're looking at everything like it's reached its final form and will go no further, but most of those options didn't even exist a few decades ago. You can't project out that far with current techniques because it's on the timescales over which they become obsolete or refined such that all those statistics change, and economic and social trends reverse or get superseded by other trends. That's something that happens, and to say it won't from now on, you would need quite a powerful explanation of why. A collected list of hard-nosed-sounding limitations aren't constraints on our society so much as design specs for the techniques to replace them. You're right that none of those are solutions as presented, but all that tells us is that it's not the complete list. Energy technologies weren't bestowed to us from on high, unchangeable as holy writ, or like the preprogrammed, finite tech tree in a computer game - We make them up as we go along. People have already built dozens of different effective energy sources and storage mediums, from covered pools of ice to farms of genetically engineered algae, and we can use all of them, and some of the old ones, and many more. There'll be mistakes and failures and cheating, but those have never invalidated or overwhelmed the successes and accompanying progress.
That's what the cool kids say because the older reactors were just experiments to make sure we could do it at all, but saying "it's a pipe dream" is just pulling stuff out of thin air. ITER and the NIF aren't playing around or just spitballing about breaking even - With our understanding of atomic physics it would be the bigger miracle if it turned out to be forever impossible. Faster than light travel and going backwards in time are pipe dreams, maybe, but not extracting usable energy from a different kind of atomic reaction. The people building the reactors have all the explanations for why they can; all the opponents have is "nuh-uh."
No technology "requires" anything, except that the abstract parts retain the same functional relationship to one another. In the '70s they said the same thing about europium being inherently necessary for color displays, and there'd be wars over it, but it's not, and there weren't - Different wavelengths of light coming out of a screen weren't "in" europium any more than solar panels and electronics are "in" rare earth elements (which aren't even rare, we're just bad at refining them). Telescope-inspired parabolic mirrors and ceramic lenses alone provide more efficient solar power than most photovoltaics, enough to melt steel at the focus of the beam. We don't need this-or-that material, we need heat or conductivity or insulation or resistance or ductility or any number of other free-floating properties to which there are more routes than we could ever find. Materials science is exploding so fiercely right now it looks like it's standing still, just because it's impossible to keep up with. Even wood has a lot of useful properties - Maybe we will make spacecraft out of it, as the scaffolding for some kind of exotic resin or other treatment. Launches don't have to be too energy intensive, either, if you trade off speed by launching from extreme-altitude parent craft, or use hybrid air-breathing SSTO engines.
We're awash in energy - Never mind the sun, even the weather and crust regularly throw the equivalent of nuclear weapons around - the challenge is transducing it into electricity or chemical bonds. Tapping earthquakes and hurricanes is a ways off, but on humbler scales, the only real obstacle is people bitching about it being "too hard," as if that's ever been anything but a thrown gauntlet to people to figure out a way to make it not hard anymore (as we're seeing with desalinization), or to just do it anyway, because some things are hard. A combined IQ of much more than 1000 and thinking real hard without any wishing is the best and most effective tool we have, and more than smart enough to find ways around the people who aren't actually interested in solving problems so much as saying "I told you so."
3227960
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Just because "we couldn't do X before, now we can", "we can't do Y now, but we will soon!" doesn't follow. Show me a demonstrated technology that scales well, is economically viable, doesn't require something we're running out of, and isn't politically toxic, and I'll listen.
As for fusion, yes it's theoretically possible. But all the "cheap" or "easy" (quotes because they aren't really either one) fusion modes have failed to pan out. The current designs, if they even scale to commercial generating plant size, will have absolutely horrible EROEI and orders of magnitude more to build and operate than (say) an equivalent coal plant. This isn't because they're early models, but rather because of the fundamental physics involved. Fusion will likely never be commercially viable. Hence "pipe dream".
For solar and wind, we're using rare elements because the simpler designs just can't provide the necessary efficiency for (relatively) dense energy collection. Again, this is down to physics. Yes, we can do concentrating solar-thermal plants. We have been able to do so for decades. We don't do it. Why? It's expensive, space-intensive, and too variable. Yes, materials science is going crazy, precisely because we're coming up with materials that don't exist in nature and need all sorts of rare elements and complicated processes. These materials will never be as cheap and abundant as the conventional ones for those very reasons.
Regardless of how you get your stuff into orbit, you need a delta-v of about 9.4 km/s for LEO. That takes over 12 MWh of energy per kilo at 100% efficiency. Needless to say, none of our launch options are anywhere near that efficiency. Orbit will never be cheap, energy-wise.
Yes, the Earth is full of energy. Energy we can safely and economically use, on the other hand, is not nearly so abundant. Everything has costs and tradeoffs. The most useful stuff we've found is hydrocarbons, and even if they weren't screwing up the climate, we're running short on cheap and useful ones. Pick any replacement, and they'll have their own problems when used at the same scale. Paving equatorial Africa with solar, for example, is going to be expensive as hell to build, maintain, and distribute the electricity, not to mention the costs of electrification of hydrocarbon-based systems.
Again, "we've done it before, we'll do it again" is a very nice sentiment, but the universe doesn't give a damn about the anthropic principle. The hole in the ground wasn't shaped for the puddle, and we don't get a glorious future just because we think we've earned it.
I've been trying all day to come up with a way to say this that doesn't sound insulting, rude, condescending, or anything like that. Please... Please forgive me if my words offend.
So we're frittering away the best cheap energy source we've found so far. So it looks like the ways we had to get into space aren't going to be available for much longer. So it's not certain we'll even be able to find a way to make this all okay.
That is no reason to give up.
It may not come to anything. It may be futile. Humanity may be as doomed as you say. Personally, I am not willing to give up that easily. If there is a chance to save humanity, the alternative being waiting for extinction or some alien deus ex machina, I say we go down fighting. I want to live forever or die trying. Not every change is an improvement, but every improvement is a change. For things to get better, it sometimes takes effort.
Again, if it sounds like I'm
angry, please don't take it as a personal attack. This is just something I've come to feel rather strongly about.
*ponyhugs*
… If there is one bit of good that could come out of this story, just one thing that I hope does come of it: that the members of this site who think ponies would be in any way improved through human form, find this story and understand the depth of the crippling cruelty that their fantasies of familiarity would bring.
"Own personal Ellis Island" indeed. At least Chuck's heart was in the right place, but I do worry about his head.
3228216
Our economic and social realities are not the future's, and we can't impose our assumptions of the "proper" political and technological landscape onto it and expect to have anything like an accurate prediction, instead of blind prophecy. The only actual trend, the one that hasn't reversed, and the one whose negation would need to be explained instead of just denied, is that problems and difficulties caused by linear trends at any given time regularly reverse or are superseded by other problems and trends, brought about by new knowledge, several times within even a single generation.
Otherwise we're no better than people wondering how a hypothetical "internet" might might affect the Soviet Union. The solutions you decry as impractical only seem like that now because you're assuming the world in which they'll be employed will be that of 2013's "post-9/11 Obama era, big oil, major inequality" scenario, instead of a world where all that will seem as quaint as the '40s, '50s, and '60s do to us now (though some things never change).
Saying otherwise is like being the moody high school intellectual who thinks s/he knows everything before going off to college, but for the world as a whole, every year is freshman year all over again.
It doesn't have to be safe and economical, just provide enough sustenance for cultural and social continuity until it can be made safer and more economical. It doesn't have to be a good solution, just the best one. There will be hard choices and sacrifices, and people who come of age during that time might well annoy the crap out of their descendants with monomaniacal thrift just like the depression generation, but the Show must go on.
The Mayans and the Easter Islanders collapsed back to the Stone Age because they thought their capabilities and cultures were fixed. They both destroyed themselves by using up all their trees. But it never occurred to them that their power was never about trees to begin with but about their ideas about what trees are for, and so they looked to gods and ancestors to save them and give them more trees, but not within themselves to examine what they really wanted (wheels, building materials, heat) and actually experiment to learn why trees met those needs, and what else in their environment can fill that niche. Nature does it with convergent evolution, and our machines are only an expression of that same universal process.
You seem to be under the impression that any solution we come up with has to be permanent, but that's impossible - All solutions, everywhere, for all time, are short-term solutions. Except for the process itself of discarding old solutions and creating new ones by doing the work to acquire new knowledge that by definition we can't predict beforehand. We advance by changing the rules.
Earth's escape velocity is likely to be a big limiting factor in reaching LEO unless/until we develop an entirely new and better paradigm of physics (I love Heinlein's jab about getting up to orbit being halfway to anywhere), but the concentration of the energy required is free to vary with the timescale over which it's discharged. And concentrating energy into chemical rocket fuels is an infinitesimal fraction of the energy we use on Earth every day - It looks like a lot because it's big and loud, but even if it came down to it, people will just have to get by without AC for a couple days (and get a reminder to check on their grandparents) if it means launching orbital infrastructure necessary to manufacture and maintain power and fueling stations. Soviet Bloc countries had to do this sort of thing all the time, but don't let the tracksuits fool you, they're perfectly respectable modern European nations now (though my Slavic friends inform me the sexism can be pretty bad).
And though we have a finite amount in the crust, we can't "use up" those various exotic elements to begin with, since from the beginning it's been a process of their extraction. We're bad at it now, and of course we'll be worse at it if we have to re-extract them from zones where they've already been used, but the entire point is that this isn't built into the fundamental fabric of reality like the Fine Structure Constant or the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it's a temporary limit in us and our understanding of all the characteristics by which a given element can be uniquely affected. Any increase in entropy that results from extracting an element from waste can be offloaded into that waste until it becomes pure photons (though by the time we could do that we could likely make any element we please, like we can with helium in the loss-y fusion reactors we already have).
Then it's fortunate money is pretend. It's not like fossil fuels, where it tracks something material, it's a measurement; it is to value and influence what inches are to length. The world is its own final authority in terms of making up all the money it needs, if it'll help maintain (the status quo of) civilization, the ultimate value of which is incalculable.
Given that it's the only context under which caring (or anything, really) can ever be said to actually transpire instead of just be reconstructed after the fact or predicted beforehand, I'd say it's certainly the closest it ever comes to it (what I was referencing earlier was actually the Copernican principle, though).
That's exactly right, we'll get it by building it. I'm doing my part as a designer and illustrator who does grant proposals for robotics and cell biology, as well as as having the knowledge base to brainstorm on the fundamental designs (I wish I did more of that, though - Mostly I have to do embarrassing comic books to pay the bills). ANYWAY--
There's been a lot of struggle and cruelty and injustice bootstrapping up from naked pieces of replicating RNA, but collapse isn't justice. There's been no transgressive break in the processes of Nature - How could there be? Only our lack of an equal, opposing force conceals that what we do is no different from every other creature under the sun, or under the ocean's blackest depths where the sun is as unimaginable as we currently view our own prosperous future. But we are baroque flourishes of the transcendentally beautiful and sublime laws of the universe and in not in the most fleeting action or thought are we unwelcome intruders into its pristine Eden.
But don't take me as mindlessly defending Homo sapiens, as Chatoyance has rightly pointed out so many people provincially and ignorantly do - Humans are just a means to an end, or rather no end, as far as civilization, knowledge, and culture are concerned (and why in this setting ponification is no sin, and while I still find the "thoughtcrime" aspect problematic, it could be argued to be no different from gun control in a world that directly reacts to people's mental states, instead of metaphorically like ours does).
Anyway, I'll let H.G. Wells take it away, and then I'm out (I mean shit, dawg, I gotta work on my own new chapter), but it brings a tear t' me eye every time:
3232158
OK, I think we've reached the point where we're talking past each other, here. You're focusing on possibilities, while I'm on about capabilities. You're viewing costs as "value" while I'm seeing them as a measure of limited resources.
What we could possibly do, based on what humanity knows, and what we're capable of doing, based on how humanity acts, are two different things. I no longer hold as a fundamental premise that Progress Will Fix Everything, and that rather changes what I see as likely.
3232234
No, I agree that's what we're talking about; I'm saying that what's actually likely changes in surprisingly short amounts of time as we continually discover things we didn't know were so likely. Our current conceptions of likelihood are local artifacts, and almost as fickle and changeable as internet memes.
You're talking about the world as if our current understanding of it were somehow the correct one, instead of a stepping stone to even more correct ones.
Saying we're "unlikely" to use new sources of energy because of this-or-that difficulty is like Don Draper saying women are "unlikely" to play soccer because their skirts would get in the way. We're talking about half-century timescales, here, and if anything, the rate of change is accelerating.
3232242
What I am saying is that when humans finally DO decide, as a species, to switch to a global system not based on petroleum, it is very possible that they will not be able to.
The reason is that it will require massive amounts of energy to switch over, and that means there will need to still be massive amounts of petroleum left to fuel that change.
But since the world is already past the peak, and petroleum is running out, along with literally everything else, it does not seem likely or possible to switch over at all.
There was a man who lost his job.
His wife asked him "You need to get new work fast! We'll starve!"
The man sighed. "There are no more jobs, anywhere around here."
The wife began crying. "We're going to die of hunger!"
"No!" Said the man. "We just need to drive to the other side of the continent!""
"But our car is broken beyond repair!" Said the wife.
"Hmmm." Said the man. "Wait! I know! I'll use all of the gas money -everything we have left- to buy a new car!
3232367
Well, maybe. But again, "able" is a function of how we're able to use the knowledge we have to manipulate the matter and energy around us, and gain further knowledge to make our past conceptions irrelevant.
Failure and death is certainly an option, but the man in the poem can have a whoooole lotta hustle.
Nick Bostrum has a very good argument about "civilization startup kits," though, which I think is interesting. We have fitness landscapes here of what it's possible to do with natural evolution, and so a newly emerging sapient species would be limited in terms of what steps of complexity it could reach from the next lowest position on the fitness landscape, if the kit is all used up, before it's capable of pushing through "valleys" to reach higher peaks, and so might simply be "sentenced to death" for stagnation or complacency.
The Fermi Paradox is certainly interesting and mysterious, but like most things in SETI, it's just too early to tell. All we know is that it's not totally obvious that people everywhere are broadcasting to the stars, but then why would they? If they were sufficiently like us that they'd even think of that, imagine how much the populace would complain about the waste of energy. We've gotten some nibbles, things I like to imagine are basic signs from starships broadcasting to systems in their line of sight meaning "I have come to trade, now please narrowcast bids for which system I should adjust my course for," but we don't have enough data to actually gravitate towards any conclusion. We might simply be blind or looking in the wrong ways. Or it could equally likely be the case that there is a "Great Sort," one of which you already mentioned (though the most terrifying of which I think is getting so caught up in virtual entertainment that the population dwindles to negligible levels). Or it could just be a very, very big galaxy, where everyone is smart and classy (and Green) enough to just be really subtle. Or we could be the first... Or we could be the last...
I don't remember which story of yours this was (I think it was the one about the newfoal theater troupe), but there was a bit about a mare who stood against Celestia for various reasons when she was trying to build Equestria out of chaos, and so she had to be turned to stone because some things were simply more important and sacrifices had to be made.
That's now (perhaps intentionally). We're witnessing Mundis' version of that era. It's a mistake to think that this is the final form of Earth or Mundis in the same way it's a mistake to think the chaotic sky above Equestria will persist forever.
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Just a bit of relevant news and opinion: we shouldn't do manned space exploration because we're all gonna be uploaded brains anyway; unfortunately, NASA can't get enough plutonium for RTGs, so robotic missions are being cancelled.
We're not going, because it's expensive, most people don't care, politicians don't get elected on space platforms, and commercial interests don't see a profit motive. By the time we figure out we need to go, we'll likely have lost the ability.
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By the time we figure out we need to, we'll cut until we can.
But it doesn't matter, not any more than the utterly trivial and tangential way "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" matters to US policy on Syria.
Our politics, our economy, our technologies, our public, and our attitudes, are not the future's, any more than the past's are ours.
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I'm sure the Easter Islanders said something similar when someone pointed out they were running out of trees to move the moai with.
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I already explained why they probably didn't. Unlike them, we have the capacity to actually escape punishment for stealing Promethean fire. Because ultimately that's what "no we can't" is about.
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I know it is possible - a project completed, a job well done, feeling like you mattered, knowing that you helped.
Earthly life has opportunities for satisfaction of all kinds, it's simply that - unlike the virtual, macromanaged, kindly world of the Optimalverse - such moments are relatively uncommon and often fleeting.
It makes me extra grateful for the ability to love and feel loved, to fill in the considerable gaps!
Re: the story.
You've really stacked the deck here. In your Conversion Bureau-verse, humans can't even cross over (without being ponified), and the bureaus are generally run by humans with some assistance from ponies, a mix of native and converted. Putting a mirror on it would have the bureaus be run by ponies in Equestria, with some humans, a mix of originals and converted.
Chuck is incredible, and I mean that in the worst way.
~~~
Re: energy
organic photo cells work. They have a lower efficiency than the rare-earth cells, but not catastrophically lower, just low enough not to be commercially competitive. If rare earths become a major problem instead of a minor one, then we have a low materials-cost alternative already available. Production can be ramped on the time scale of years, not decades.
We can easily end up with an energy crunch which will be economically painful. In a worst case, it can even result in mass death. This is bad. But at a technical level, we are to the point that we are not going to face pan-civilization-scale energy exhaustion until the sun burns out.
This is 8 ½ ponies with all of the staff. I suppose that this is ConversionBureau # 042. Sam Francisco is a reference to Alien Nation. That is a good show.
Things tried out -> things dried out.
This story seems a very positive take on the premise.
7714713 FIXED! Thank you for catching my error! And for reading my words.
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[just using 'reply to' as way to ring a bell somewhere so you will see it sooner. While you probably already saw it ....]
Transcript for image:
Unicorn : AAAAAAAAAA!
- What's wrong? (not sure who, probably relative of Phoebe {human}
- (Phoebe, explains) - " The unicorn in 'the last unicorn' got turned into human"
Unicorn (Marigold, If I Understand Ccorrectly she-unicorn), who was sitting with her, and was making AAAAA call in 1st line completely agrees: "The HORROR..The HORROR.."
well, I remember this little post at Crosstime Cafe, and my brain finally linked it to this story from you, Chatoyance...
On my own take at this ... I don't think unicorns are horrified by unusual shape, but more by very fore-sensing/knowing all those sad things what will happen when unicorn's power meet spectaculary-lacking self-control and fore- (intro?) sight required for safely using such powers humans .... in addition to "catastrophical downgrade' effect you described here.
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Marigold Heavenly Nostrils would be, because she is beyond vain. Dana has portrayed her as so vain that her own reflection can trap her in place, potentially permanently, unless violently turned from the vision of her own beauty. To Marigold the unicorn, losing unicornoid form would be the equivalent of a human turning into a Denebian Slime Devil, covered in mucus and filth. It would be degrading and ugly beyond measure.
Other unicorns might be okay with shape-shifting, but not Marigold!
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! In theory there should be another my comment, but something glitched ...
On topic of transformation fiction in general and you as highly unusual author in this genre. I mean, I haven't read ALL transformation fiction written since Internet happened, only small selection and then some from here - but I got such impression early (1985-2010?) transformation stories were a bit ...on cautionary/"don't do it" side? In contrast, your stories are ..full of ..light, and I can't say this light is fake or unfounded! It seems a lot of humans, despite their praise of 'progress' actually afraid about truely deep changes, they want familiar changes and nothing more? I was wondering if your own transformation history allowed you to break out into another side?
Also, additional question I formulated a bit later: see, in genres like cyberpunk augmentation/additions to body often painted (literally) in quite horrific light. I'm not sure, but wasn't it part of -punk subculture? Exposing things mainstream finds disgusting, yet somewhat living with all it? Protest, even if not very effective in grand timescale? Again, as I commented under Dana's blog (I think) we may not have cyborgs walking under our windows (hm... insert this joke about Txxx running on Linux kernel 4.1.115 ... ) but we have something even less expected - trans (as in transgender) humans. Future turned out to be full of surprises ...
But thinking deeper on this: wasn't this conflict between two or more fractions (normals and altered) as often shown in cyberpunk genre actually drawn from real-world divide between mainstream and minorities? It was set in future, but still wink at then-present reader to look around and recognize something? Sadly, not many readers recognized this ... ?
Also, while we at it ...This scene in Terminator-2, when Sara Connor (is my memory still with me?) thinks along the lines, while driving truck: "and how it become _killing machine_ is better father for my son than real father"? I think this line was inserted in film not out of nothing..But I only recognized it as significant now .....