June 28, 2015
Dear Journal,
Welcome to the city of trees! Most trees per capita in the world, that’s what the sign says! I guess it’s… probably not true while we’re here. Two more ponies in one place probably changes the population a great deal. God, what I wouldn’t do for a whole capita. That’d be a colony. Probably plenty of ponies who know more about running things than I do. Let someone better take over. I’ll fix your cars.
Okay, probably can’t count on that. Won’t be boring. Got into the new city, totally different wildlife here. Not as many big predators, lots of raccoons and squirrels and stuff. Few bobcats, but they’re smaller than we are (barely). Guess the natives did a little better here than further south with all this nature around.
Found Joseph’s building, intact. No signs of habitation yet, but we haven’t searched very wide. Went in, found the power dead, and the backup generators (pretty much anything communications-related has them) out of fuel. Brought in gallons and gallons and the office was in business again. Turned on my big boom-box again, because how better to attract the ponies than with awesome tunes. Can still hear the radio broadcast from LA, and the satellite signal is coming in clear.
Not really sure what Joseph did for most of the day. I’m going to call it computer magic, if that’s okay. He’s doing something he thinks will keep the system working longer. Disabling things that would shut the satellites down as the GPS starts to drift, stuff like that. “It’s not a perfect fix” he says over and over. Keeping this station powered is going to make a huge difference for the satellites up there. It has programs to do… something something… course corrections… science stuff.
It all sounds like magic to me. The one question I keep coming back to is: how long will it last? A few more months? Years? I got an encouraging answer, or at least more encouraging than having a new pony delivered to you in a near-fatal aircraft accident. He says that we’ll probably still have some use of the system ten or even twenty years from now, because science science smart pony reasons.
Whenever someone gives me an estimate like this, I cut it in half. Five years of global communication. Five years to travel far and wide and bring the ponies in to build a community. Would it be possible to fix the problems with the GPS network the same way? We’d probably need to visit several different stations to do that. How many solar panels would it take?
Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself. Here we are moving through the state like we’re the masters now. Everyone else is gone, so we’re free to do what we want with what’s left. But is that even really true? Maybe there are thousands of ponies we haven’t found yet, like… if the depopulation was concentrated somewhere close to California and spread out over the country, so that the east is still full. Not sure why we wouldn’t have heard from them by now…
NYC. Got to go there soon as we can. If the depopulation was even across the globe, then we’ll find more ponies there than anywhere else in the US. Hopefully they made a way for themselves all this time. Wonder if they’ll want to start a colony with us.
Digression. Tomorrow we’re going to find some solar stuff. Have to convert another truck first. Joseph can earn his keep and levitate the panels in while I work. We’ll blanket the roof in the things. Getting power to last at night would be harder, but… one miracle at a time. We’re trying to work fast, after all.
Probably will be too tired to say much these next few days, but I’ll make sure to if anything important happens. No meaningful news from home, so that’s probably for the best. Huan keeps me company better than Joe could. He’s a good dog.
—A
June 29, 2015
[The following entry is not typed, but written in large letters, still taking up the whole page but better looking than the last ones]
Dear Journal,
Joseph is such a lazy jerk! Couldn’t be bothered to do anything useful. Doesn’t work nearly hard enough. Stupid sitting on his stupid computer all day. He came with me to the warehouse, but only after I’d already found it. Mostly I used a forklift to do the work, after I converted the damn thing. Remind me again why I bother keeping this guy around? Impossible to get along with. If Sky were only here. We could play monopoly until Joe decided to pull his weight.
—A
June 30, 2015
Work work work. Flat roof solar on top I’ve been working all the livelong day. Joe just puts them up there and I do everything. Run out of room. Will have to use stands on the ground too. Can’t break the panel. Rechargeable tools all by myself. Velcro and hard work. Smell like death, way more humid up here. I knew Joseph wouldn’t come up, ditched the shorts while I was working, so damn sweaty.
Useless. Is it him or me?
—A
July 1, 2015
[Particularly sloppy]
No work like stallion’s work. No stallions work. Solar panels going roofside signals. No satellites wish Sky. Hugs
July 2, 2015
[typed entries resume]
Dear Journal,
I thought about cutting out the last two entries, didn’t seem like they were adding anything constructive to the journal here. It would actually be more work to take them out though, since I just wrote right on the pages. Whatever. Just skip over a few dumb pages. Way easier than what I did.
Nothing’s better to get through stress than hard work. It was harder to do everything without another pony to help (like Sky), but I didn’t really want to be around Joseph. Got the whole roof done, and that’s enough power to do plenty of stuff during the day apparently. The whole building is filled with those UPS battery things, and Joseph has already written a program to shut everything down at night and start it up again about ten once the sun’s come up in force.
Not a perfect solution, but we don’t have too terribly much time to devote to this. I find myself more and more grateful for all those green energy subsidies before the Event. Solar tech has come a long way, and now there are panels everywhere right for the taking. I keep this kind of work up, and I’ll be an electrician yet.
I wonder what our union seal would look like. Maybe some hooves and horns and coils of wire or something. Not that unions really make sense when there aren’t even enough of us not to go extinct, and at present I am totally unwilling to help bolster those numbers.
How anyone else could even consider. Damnit, Sky! How can you be thinking… it’s only been a month! Were all those nihilist philosophers right all along? The human animal, that’s all we ever were. Not me, dammit. Never me. If she wants a tiny horse for a boyfriend, then more power to her. Not me.
Sacremento always had fewer people than Los Angeles. I would count myself lucky if we could find just one. We haven’t yet, though I have seen evidence that a few shops and things have been looted. Grocery store was broken into, so that’s a good sign. Maybe our rock music scared them away. I’ll switch to the national anthem, maybe. Something safe.
Joseph is having more trouble than he initially thought he would integrating with the satellite network, but he says it’s “inevitable” he’ll figure it out, working from within the network and not having anyone trying to shut him out. One or two more days, tops. I still need his help with anything that requires anything more than tacit precision, but I’ve been making do. You wouldn’t believe how much work can be accomplished with some simple levers and dragging and your mouth. Industrious little horsy, that’s me.
Not by choice. I’d probably have finished yesterday if I’d been human, with hands and without distractions. Whatever. If I’d still been human, there probably would’ve still been other humans, and I’d still be working the garage. I miss my friends. I miss my mom, my sister. I hope they’re okay. Maybe I’ll be able to make a trip up to Oregon soon, check to see if they made it.
Shut up, it’s not impossible! It might be genetic! Neither Joseph nor Cloudy Skies have any relatives nearby, so how would we know? And Moriah, well… relatives are the least of our unanswered questions about her.
Learned from Cloudy about things back home. Lake is drying up; she gives it another month before it’s totally dry. There are a few smaller ponds in town, but none terribly close. Either we’ll need much more power (and a few industrial water extractors), or a way to syphon water from the river. We don’t have any plumbers, but she said she’s going to find the nearest access to the river and see what sort of flexible hoses she can find around the city. Maybe we can daisy-chain some fireman-style hoses and a few industrial pumps. It’s not like water for the cattle has got to be sparkling like dew literally sucked from the air.
Moriah is up and moving, walking short distances. Sky says she’s “doing super great”, but that she’s tripping over herself like a foal and she probably won’t be able to walk properly for another week or so. None of her memories have come back either, except one: there is something important in the plane. She seems to think it may’ve survived, and wants to make a trip to get it.
Sorry Moriah, but that little plane has probably washed out to sea by now. We plan on taking a trip to find out, but only after we make it back home. If it hasn’t washed out yet, I don’t think another day or two will make much difference. Not that I think it’s likely anything could’ve survived. Maybe if she was carrying something in a fire-safe, but otherwise not a chance.
We will make something of this world yet. There have got to be others out there somewhere. We’ll find you, ponies scattered to the winds. Whoever, whatever did this to us, we’ll show them we can’t be stamped out so easily.
—(not) Lonely Day
I guess this is a big break for camp "A is a dude".
That second line though.
Yay, another update right as I'm about to go to sleep.
Curse you fimfic, I've had enough ponies for one day.
Seriously, It's 4 AM for god's sake.
Also, yay roadtrip time!
He's starting to accept it. He's definitely starting to accept it. He says 'not', but the point is he's still calling himself by his new name. I think we should be worried for little A.
Just got back from NYC two days ago. With the amount of people there (and that the depopulation transformation stuff is equal) there could be a colony already there.
Wooooooooooo!!!!
6099932
But what about the "A was a dude camp"?
Hmm... A seems to be getting slowly brainwashed.
Sorry, seems like a mighty coincidence that pony names are being picked up and all, A slowly beginning to accept this way of life is like, weird, adaptable doesn't have a place here.
Also... he seems to have had some sort of problem with Sky, relationship problems? And slowly I see a connection between Unicorn Nobility and Earth pony farmers here, seems like we're in for a little trouble in this seemingly one sided deal, A being a simple guy doesn't see the use of computers going far, eventually power is going to be a problem so why bother with it?
He see's Joseph as being lazy because he isn't helping in any way, no manual labor whatsoever, A see's pulling your weight around as literal.
Oh, A. You have a perfectly good capita on your scapulae.
Huh. I wasn't making any assumptions about gender beyond defaulting to masculine pronouns, but now? Between this and "no stallions work," I have to wonder...
In any case, progress is... hopefully being made. After all, considering what Joe's been saying about cracking that number code... Well, it shouldn't take too much longer. Besides, there appear to be ponies here. The more, the merrier, though A never seems to get especially merry.
So, no immediately apparent fellow horsebeasts in Sacramento, but evidence of at least one? Hopefully they stick out their heads and get noticed before A and Joe head back home. Well, assuming it goes well, first contact always has the potential for things going sideways.
Oh A, signing your journal (not) Lonely Day is clearly the first step towards signing it Lonely Day.
There is currently (known) 4 ponies in LA, LA has approxamitely 4 Million people.
The current estimate for current world (pony-ish) population is over 7200
I'm still willing to bet at least a Million former-human ponies survived
... I hope that pilots-in-training are allowed to go out to fly on their own.
*meanwhile in Boston*
Mysterious Pony: *Traveling across the empty Boston city with his dog, he pauses for a moment and turned to his dog, whom looked curiously up at him*.... Ready to go f*ck some sh*t up? *cocks saddle-shotgun*
6100089
Then the gender swap would be in the journal. Being a guy before and a girl now is notable, even compared to the species change.
6100572
By that logic if Day was a guy before he'd remark on the change to his genitals. Certainly the new shape. No mention of issues with regards to pants that it would cause.
It's possible 'A's age may be different after the change too.
Or, the journal is for 'A's and not others, and this stuff 'A' doesn't want to talk about our even think about won't be mentioned. Considering 'A' feels no need to give a name . . .
You want proof that Alex is a Stallion??? There's your proof. He just said he was.
This mystery is killing me. I mean, you've got mystery around the whole plot 'n premise of the story, but did you really have to put so much mystery into every single character too? I mean, that's going a little overboard, don't you think? At least give us something to feed off of instead of just developing the plot mystery instead. Like, I just... Damn, this is a slow story. I know you update every single day and I commend you for that; to me it's an impossible feat to pump out content like this that's so high quality for this long. But cheese and crackers, develop the characters a little! But Blaze, A is developing character! They're already starting to accept their name change! Well, yeah, but this kind of progress is slow as molasses.
I dunno. You're taking it so dang slow with everything that I wonder if we'll still be here a month from now when the story's over 80 000 words long and is not finished yet. I think pacing is one of the most important things in storytelling, and it's falling a bit flat here. Progress! And stop leaving us in so many mysteries! Mystery is good, but only in moderation, like everything else in the world.
6100594
I'm voting A was a woman and is now a mare, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
6100650
I took that line as evidence A is a mare. She's bemoaning that no stallions are working.
6100650
S\He also said "No Stallions Work" which could imply female.
Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here, laughing uproariously at all the people arguing A's current/former gender.
So.... A is a mare. I always knew. I mean, she did day "no stallions work"
Also I'm liking the new setting, glad to see they left for another trip.
Ok i see a lot of flaws in josephs plan. Ive worked with compuers a good chunk of my life and Ive seen what it takes to keep a satalite network running. They need constant observation abd updating to keep them in their stationary orbit. Without this constant supervision they start to drift from gheir position within an hour. Within two or three days they start losing orbit. By a week half of the satalites in orbit will have drifted out into space or come careening into our atmousphere or blown up from rogue asteroids. Small rocks from space no bigger than a small pickup to much larger sizes are constantly careenin into our atmouspher every day but usually burn up completely before they break through. Satalites need to be monitored 24/7 to be told to avoid this stuff. Theres no way you can write a program to be constantly aware of all this complexity for so many satalites. And if he loses a signal relay satalite, there goes any satalites it was routing to and through. Sure you could connect to each satalite individually but thst is timr consuming and a lot of micro management. Signal relay satalites make this much easier as theyre designed to handle multiple satalites at once. and some satalites these days are designed only to recieve signals from a relay to limit remote hacking from the ground. If it goes into a relay they can track the location source. Take out that relay, bye bye satalite network.
Lon story short, theyd be lucky if the network survives a year let alone 10. Theres no feasible way. You need a dedicated team of trained and educated individuals whom can keep a constant vigil.
the chapter said that journal entree was garbled, so A could've been saying something else. just a theory.
Well... we're starting to get somewhere....
What? Since when Moriah is missing memories? Last I knew A/Lonely Day believed Moria was refusing to tell somethings by covering with very convincing lies, not that Moriah is missing memories..
6100892 It's serious business don't you know!?
6100650 Actually I am pretty sure what A said there is meant as:
"There's no work likesStallion's work."
Followed by:
"Stallions don't work."
Because Joe doesn't do very much in the way of proper work to help A out, like Sky does. Sure he might do some fine-grain work or heavy lifting of things, but overall he refuses to do any cabling or other special work.
Meanwhile both Sky and A are doing a lot of meaningful work for both long term and short term survival, Joe is investing precious time and resources into projects that will inevitably fail.
I read this story as if A is gender and sex neutral, since it doesn't really matter to the core underlying story here what A really is or was, just that A is a pony and has a lot of trouble accepting it and relinquishing their humanity.
6100433 The masculine pronouns probably come from the working history A has, being an auto-mechanic tends to lead to an individual being a certain build and type of person. There's a few female auto-mechanics here in Australia that I've met and fit the stereotype, lovely enough as people go of course.
6100120 I think A sees it less as literal and more that the project(s) that Joseph has invested in are pointless in the long run, a network will only last as long as the satellites do and they will inevitably go down. Computers will continue to function however, and a mass storage facility of hard drives with as much of the data of the Internet on them, is invaluable which immediately garnered Joe's place in the 'colony' since he thought to do it and had the skill to do so. All of that information is literally priceless to the survivors as it's the entire culimination of mankind through recorded history. Technical documents being the most valuable to them right now.
If Joe worked on more important goals, such as short term survival goals, I think A would be much less inclined to talk ill of him. Joe's got some of the right ideas but has little of the real world skills that A and Sky have, which is fairly typical for a computer person to have. (I being one such person can attest that we have little in the way of life and social skills.)
6101288 forgot about the gps. Lot of my knowledge is outdated. Had a job in network communications before the job market crash. GPS wasnt as utilized then as it is now. Course most of my knowledge is for ground based networks, but it sometimes required work with the satalite guys.
6101301
Fair enough, but until Joe does something and helps with the very useful commodity of magic, then there is going to be some resentment.
6098526
Yeah, that's one I use on my smartphone. Not my kindle though. Paperwhite doesn't really do the proprietary software thing.
6099559
Oh, there's definitely a reason. I suppose people can judge for themselves later whether or not it's good.
6099933
Hah, I posted right as I got up. Timezones man.
6100012
There probably is. With as many people as live in such a dense place...
6100120
I don't think pony names would be introduced to this story at all if it wasn't for Cloudy Skies. Without her, they'd use their human names for the whole story probably. There wouldn't be a reason for them to change their names otherwise.
6100150
Hah, confirmed. Never! I won't confirm anything! The story will have already told people and I won't confirm anything. ANNNYYTHING!
6100385
Plenty of days in Sacramento. Plenty of time to sight the aliens this time.
6100433
Well, Lonely Day's life has never been that merry. Just when things seem peaceful they fall apart all over again. Maybe if they're actually stable for awhile A will relax a little.
6100532
They're going to be in trouble if it's only seven thousand. You can restart a population with just a few hundred, but I bet it's super upleasent. Would take a really long time to get back to stable for civilization numbers, and difficult not to get in the trap of subsistence living.
6100547
Hah, I wish. But who's he going to shoot with it?
6100688
In my experience, most real-world people don't get "progress" in their lives the way the narrative hero does in most stories. I've written that. Second Chance in My Little Apprentice was a hero with a heroic progression. Most of us real people just sorta survive from day to day, we're slow to change and even slower to accept change into our lives. Part of the story I wanted to tell was a story of real people. I want Lonely Day and Cloudy Skies and Joseph and the others to feel like people who could be your neighbors.
On the other hand, often times we're forced to adapt or die. When the change first happened, A was forced to adapt to quite a bit, but then personal development slowed once the party grew complacent. I have a feeling this next week is going to be forcing some pretty big changes, speeding things up as we move out of the second act and into the third.
The story won't be more than two months long, I already know. I'm guessing it won't take seven full weeks, though I'm not finished yet so I don't know. Those frustrated with the mystery should be relieved this coming week, because between this week and the next most of the stuff should be on the table. If that's any consolation.
I also don't think I'd tell such a mystery driven story again. Having the main character's identity be vague worked for me I think, but it's been a pain to write and I don't think I'd ever try it again. If nothing else, all the mysteries about A will be long gone once the story's over, since the epilogue is going to be written in prose.
6101025
Well they were bound to leave eventually. I mean, they're going to move out of LA eventually, but probably take several smaller trips first.
6101118
This has already been said, but more than Joseph already working with the more modern self-regulating of the satellites (which is true), but the actual mechanics of satellite function are not part of the scope of this story. Joseph is at one of the ground stations with all the correct tools and such to communicate with them, but this doesn't matter. All that really matters is that "technical magic happened, and it works now". If it's any consolation, Josephs work isn't the real reason they're still working, even though he thinks (and A believes) it is.
6101255
Lonely day isn't sure. A seems to be more willing to believe that Moriah has told the truth, given that more and more time is passing and she still isn't revealing anything more. Or you could take this section to mean Moriah is more willing to talk about the "missing" memories that she was really lying about.
6101268
Also true that A's sex doesn't really matter for the course of the story. It could be read either way, and it shouldn't effect the narrative too much. That's how I've tried to write it anyway.
6101288
Yeah, exactly right. Joe DOES have the right equipment right now, and it's quite possible when physically at the ground station he was able to get the passwords and such from the computers there, but beyond that he doesn't have the right training and many other things. I don't want this to turn into the kerbal space program or something, so "Joe does his special talent" is enough for me narratively.
6101301
Hah, yeah. Lonely Day seems to have plenty of good reasons to dislike Joseph. I'm sure that over time, as he matures and develops better priorities, Day's opinions of him will greatly improve.
6102247
As i mentioned earlier my knowledge is more than a little out of date. After doing some quick research im actually amased at how much easier gps makes handling things. Especially since it automates so much more of the process. Wonder what the old signal relay satalites are still used for, if even still used at all anymore.
Oh well. I'll take a hard line connection any day. So much more reliable than wireless or satalite. Ive raged more than s few times when my Quake tournament got called on the count of a rogue cloud between me and the satalite. Never again.
6102266
Hah, yeah. Me too. But there aren't any ISPs left after the end. Unfortunately.
6100688 Heh... see, I love the story exactly because of all the mystery, slow pace and careful character development :)
To each his own I guess.
6102247
Jup. I calculated the pony (or creature) density with between 1/100000 and 1/250000... the former should work okayish, making it very difficult to find enough survivors to have a viable colony but not impossible either. For Greater LA (after-Event population 185) that would be 1 pony per 183 mi2, for the city itself (after-Event population 39) about 1 pony per 12 mi2, meaning that our current count of 4 characters already covers 48 mi2 LA city. Divide accordingly for the 1/250000.
Unless of course Ponygeddon didn't leave survivors evenly distributed according to population density but in clusters, which would forming viable colonies much easier. Who knows? Could be all kinds of variables or survivor rates.
Which you're doing a magnificent job with. That slow pace and subtle character development, all shrouded in mystery that is equally vexing to the reader as to the characters make this story so damn special.
Too bad, you're damn good at it. Reading the comment board has been half the fun so far.
6101263
I'm actually fairly certain Starscribe is doing this on purpose, not just being vague, but leaving very strong hints in both directions.
I know the others have said it, but this just proves that A is irrevocably female.
6119823
Yeah, I know. What self respecting red blooded stallion would ever write the word "Hugs" in his diary?
Huh? capita means "head". per capita thus translates to counting for each person, not a thousand people or something like that. That would be per mille.
I think that A is a stallion and Sky is Cycling. And A has no idea why it's making him irritable and stupid. While Sky can control her own reaction to it because she's always been a Pony.
6120146 *checks diary* hm wait .-. but... ah nevermind
6102247
"Proprietary" isn't quite the right word to describe FBReader. It's open-source under the GNU GPL, which means that the license actively works against it ever becoming proprietary.
A's so sure that nothing could have survived the plane crash? I guess they've never heard of a black box.
8505381
In the entry where the plane crashes, he specifically mentions that a lot of light aircraft don't have flight data recorders.
The hell did she do?