Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me

by DataPacRat

Charmed, I'm Sure

What in the name of Zeus's zillion zany zoophiliac zingers do you do when a goddess tells you that she selected you to save the world?

As it turns out, in my case, it's heave a sigh, and then start heading out to try to save the world.

I stopped in at the Ponyville spa, and had Aloe and Lotus give me a dye-job - filling in all the white parts of my coat with red, so that I stopped looking like a Guernsey and started looking more like a Jersey. I stuffed all my clothes and gear into panniers, save for the somewhat mysterious Warden-whistle, which I kept around my neck; that, I hid underneath a red bandanna (admittedly closer in size to a towel) tied around my neck. I was remembering that explosion Red had mentioned in Blueblood's airship; if it had been set off by somepony targeting me, I didn't want to make it too easy for them to recognize me on my return to Canterlot.

Once back in the capital, even though I didn't look like myself, I was able to arrange for a private meeting with both Princesses fairly rapidly, by using the pre-selected passphrase 'Lion's Pounce'. I'd picked it as an easily memorable version of Ponce de Leon, the fellow famous for searching for the fountain of youth, which tied neatly into the Princess's superficial memory charm. Once the two of them had performed a basic set of wards to prevent ordinary eavesdroppers, I told them, "Without telling me what it is, please select some sort of codeword or form of writing or other sort of signal you can send to yourself, so that you can write a letter of instructions to yourselves to read once you put your memory charm is put back in place, which you will know is from you, even if you no longer remember the reasons behind what you wanted yourselves to do." Once such preliminaries were taken care of, they removed their memory charms, and recalled that they had agreed to help with my search for an ethical form of widespread immortality, and knowing how dangerous such discussions could be, they went to work casting their full spectrum of privacy magics. At which time I told them, "Now, you will probably want to remove your other memory charm, which is locked with the phrase 'correct horse battery staple'. Whereupon they finally recalled everything I'd previously told them about me, Earth, humans, and so on.

Sure, it was a completely paranoid and overdone system to keep something secret that who-knew-how-many extra-Equestrians could blow open with a single sentence. But, as of yet, nobody knew that the Princesses knew anything about it - and only the Princesses, a Greek goddess, and a magical Goth teen knew I had anything to do with it. And even if the general secret became public knowledge, the fact of my involvement in it could still be a secret worth keeping - and the only way to keep it was to be overly paranoid about it even before it turned out to have any actual value.

I filled them in with all that had happened since we'd last had a chance for a fully in-depth conversation, and once we were on the same page, said, "And so, if we can believe her, then not only am I probably not the only extra-Equestrian being running around... but we may very well be facing an extinction-level event - or even an existential risk to all sapience in Equestria."

The two of them looked, as you might suppose, quite unhappy at the idea.

---

"Before I came to Equestria," I mused aloud, "all the evidence pointed to our single world as having the only sapience in existence - and that if we died out, there might very well be no other sapients who would ever take our place. And that there were no escape hatches, like other universes containing their own sapient species. Naturally, I've had to revise my opinion on that - but the same sorts of reasoning that applied when there's a single sapient species in an entire universe can also be used for figuring out what's the best thing to do for this world's people.

"To start with... and this is a hard step for many people... is to accept that the possibility of complete failure exists - that at some point in the future, Equestria and everything living in it may cease to be. Not just forced to deal with everlasting night, or even reduced to a few huddling survivors, or even all life turned to ruins - but utterly and completely gone with nobody to ever remember that there was ever an Equestria at all. Because until such stakes are truly accepted - then we will have a hard time considering all the available means to prevent such an occurrence.

"There's a saying one of my teachers liked to emphasize: 'What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse.'"

"There seem to be three overall scenarios. One, that no matter what we do, Equestria and its people will survive; in which case making preparations won't do any serious harm. Two, that no matter what we do, Equestria and its people are doomed; in which case we might as well spend our time making preparations as doing anything else. And three, that it's possible that what we do can make a difference between whether Equestria's people survive or not - in which case it becomes very important that we make the best possible preparations we can, in order to maximize the odds of survival."

---

"One option that should be considered is a next-to-worse case scenario... that Equestria itself, the place, cannot be saved - but, perhaps, some of its people can be. If I, and the other pieces in this Game, can be sent here... then perhaps groups of your little ponies can be sent elsewhere. I don't know if you already know of some sort of world-crossing magic, or if you have a program underway to research one; but if you don't, then I suggest you start, and begin preparing at least one Alpha Site where Equestrian civilization can be continued."

"'Alpha Site'?"

"A term from one of my world's fictional stories, about the discovery of a gate leading to far realms - and to dangers. In case any of those dangers turned out to be too dangerous to their home, they started placing small colonies in hidden places - the first and most well-developed was the Alpha Site, the second was the Beta Site, and so on."

---

"One thing that I have noticed about your ponies, both directly and from reading, is that when danger threatens, most of them tend to... well..."

"... run around screaming?"

"That, yes. If we're going to be faced with something that puts all of Equestria at risk - then if there's something that can be done to minimize that particularly useless response..."

"We have oft despaired of our little ponies who were lost in crises, due to their equine nature. Dost thou think that we have not tried to improve it?"

"Possibly - but Earth has had wars and disasters for millennia, but careful studies of effective civil defense are only around fifty years old. If we're lucky, we might be able to import some of that recent knowledge. For example - maybe efforts can be made to, well, train your ponies, so that instead of running around randomly, they'll try to run to designated emergency shelters. Getting them off the streets, allowing the professionals to do their jobs without the average citizens being in the way, may be of even more benefit than the shelters themselves."

The Princesses looked at each other thoughtfully, and I continued, "And if more of them can be trained to do something useful in at least one type of emergency situation... all the better. And this doesn't even have to be training explicitly for such emergencies. For example, I was once a member of the 'Boy Scouts' - well, a 'cub scout', anyway - which was mainly about enjoying camping and hiking; but also taught self-reliance, first-aid, handicrafts, and all sorts of other things. We could try making a list of hobbies, see if we can come up with anything remotely related to that hobby which can be useful, and then seeing if we can encourage local hobby-groups which happen to emphasize those extra uses as much as can be done without making the hobby less enjoyable. And maybe add more first-aid to school curriculums."

I considered, then added, "For those ponies who are able to avoid running around, but aren't able to join the Guard full-time... one fairly recent innovation in some places on Earth are CERTs: Community Emergency Response Teams. They hold down their normal full-time jobs, and in their spare time, they train in basic disaster response skills. Things like coordinating with the local fire-fighters, peace officers, paramedics, and other first responders; raising funds for extra equipment, helping with more advanced first-aid and crowd control; running messages; providing food and water for the professionals; guard dangerous sites from wandering civilians; help with evacuations and shelters, and light search-and-rescue; and anything else that needs doing, helping to free up the professionals. When a disaster strikes locally, they gear up to do whatever they safely can until those professionals arrive. If even one such team can be put into place somewhere before a Game piece does major damage there, then many lives might be able to be saved.

"If we want to make it more appealing... back on Earth, zombies are a fictional monster, considered silly and kind of cute by some people - but there are still plenty of stories of zombies causing apocalypses. So some people have started up zombie defense clubs, getting ready to defend themselves against such an attack, which they know will never happen - but which also happens to prepare them for all sorts of other bad things that could happen. I don't know whether zombies really exist here in Equestria, but maybe we could pick some sort of boogieman that's known to be harmless, and put together some clubs to protect against them..."

---

"The way your communications networks currently work - it can take weeks just to send a letter from one end of Equestria to another, and a similar length of time to mobilize a response. I don't suppose that the magical flame thing you use to send letters to and from Spike can be mass-produced?"

Celestia shook her head. "It is a specialized spell, gradually woven into his being from his hatching."

"And Twilight just leaves him behind as she travels weeks away. There's one more reason I usually rank her second to Fluttershy..."

I trailed off from the odd looks I was getting - Luna was smiling rather ominously. I hoped that whatever she was thinking would be hidden by the double memory charms by the time we were done. I coughed, and continued, "So - if more magical communication is infeasible... then it may still be possible to shave off comm-times with a few non-magical tricks.

"Over in the Appleoosa area, they've got a system of stagecoaches. A group of ponies will pull a coach as far as they can at their fastest speed, to the next station; and then stop and rest, while a fresh gang of ponies is hooked up to the coach to keep pulling it. Swap out the heavy coach for a light bag of mail, and probably the earth ponies for pegasi - and it should be easy enough to arrange for a 'pony express' for high-value mail. It may even be able to pay for most of its own expenses, by also carrying regular mail that the senders pay a premium for, for such fast delivery.

"Another option requires somewhat more infrastructure to be built, so would take longer to put into place, but could send messages almost as fast as Spike can. On Earth, this was developed from signal towers - though here, maybe it could work even better with permanent clouds. Instead of a single signal-fire waiting to be lit to warn of danger, these towers had, say, lamps whose lights could be hidden with shutters, which could blink open and closed. These towers, or clouds, would be placed as far apart as possible while still being able to see each other's lights, even if just through a telescope. One tower would get a message from the ground, and start blinking its light in patterns, each pattern representing a letter or number; and the next tower in line would see the patterns, and blink its own lights for the next tower; and so on, until the message reached its destination.

"If either or both of these could be implemented - then whatever happens in Equestria, from its borders to its heart, could be communicated to you many times more quickly than they currently can - allowing you to start coming up with the best response that much sooner."

---

"Now, once you know what's going on, it would also be useful to improve the range of responses at your disposal to deal with events, and the rapidity with which they can be deployed. My wishlist would probably start with Project Thor, but since I haven't found any hint that anyone other than Nightmare Moon has ever been sent into orbit, let's see if we can come up with something a bit more modest and feasible..."

"For example - there is a group of people on Earth called the Swiss. They are well-known for trying to avoid getting caught in fights - but being very, very prepared for any such fights that happen. For example, all their bridges, roads, tunnels, and other such infrastructure is built so that it can be easily and quickly demolished in order to prevent its use by any enemy invading their land..."

---

The Princesses and I discussed various ideas; and when the time they could spare me was up, we came up with a new set of pass-phrases for next time, they wrote their letters to themselves, and they re-cast their doubled memory-charms.

Whereupon I hunted down Blueblood. Not entirely literally; while I did wear Chekov (yes, I'd finally given a name to my hoofgun), that was just in case somebody started taking potshots while I was near him, or if he decided his political fortunes would be bettered without my interference. (After all, for all I knew, he was the one who blew up his own airship quarters.)

Given how he'd left me high and dry with the buffalo, I wasn't feeling any particular urge to play the niceties with him, so when I found him luncheoning with some pretty mares who were fawning over him, I simply stated, "We need to talk."

"You can see I'm busy - perhaps another time."

"That's alright - with the right medication, that little problem you picked up could be cured in just a few weeks."

In seconds, the two of us were alone, and Blueblood was giving me a pained look. "I thought you said you didn't lie."

"Unless violence or life-saving were involved. I'm quite willing to punch you in the snoot right now. But as it happens - I do believe you have a problem which can be cured with the right medication; unfortunately, I doubt any responsible medical professional would be willing to prescribe a sufficient dosage."

He sighed. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"If there is, you've made it abundantly clear you have no interest in doing so. However, I do have a thought on something you can do for you, which also happens to fit in with some of my own plans."

"Mm?"

"I want Equestria's population to have more education. It seems reasonably to conclude that the current level of education compared to the level of taxes to pay for it has gone through a lot of arguing in the Barn of Lords, and reached something of a steady state which would be hard to change. I have an idea which could effectively increase governmental revenue, in a way other than a standard tax... but I don't know whether or not it's actually a good idea. So I'm giving you the opportunity to present it to the Barn as your own idea. If it works, you get the accolades. If it doesn't, you can blame your over-enthusiasm for it on youthful exuberance."

"I'm listening."

"Consider that every Equestrian child gets, on average a few extra years of schooling; at the end of which, they spend six months or a year in, let's call it, National Service, in which they get to travel to some interesting part of Equestria and help do or build things which benefit Equestria as a whole - receiving, in return, wages that are somewhat less than would be required to hire ponies to do the job normally. Helping at hospitals. Building homes for the poor. Any other feel-good projects you can get your staff to come up with. The difference between having these projects done the current way, and the cost of the wages for these eager young-adult ponies, can be considered just as much a profit for the government as instituting a tax would be."

"And if I have no interest in this... proposal?"

"Then I go look for some other noble who'll put it forth for me. But since giving ponies extra time in schools in which they have a chance to learn about Unicornia, and having more ponies working under direct government control, seem to be highly compatible with the social goals you've expressed, I thought I'd give you the first offer."

"And what was it you get out of this?"

"Like I said - a higher-educated population. Besides - I've got a lot more on my plate than trying to push a single domestic policy, so I'm trying to delegate this to the ponies who specialize in figuring out if such proposals are worthwhile or not."

"I will have to consider it."

"That's fine. You should also consider that I'll be approaching another noble to be the sponsor of another policy, to compete with this one: Voluntary Service. And a third, to argue the case that no such Services should be implemented at all."

"That hardly seems the way to get anything done."

"Like I said - I don't actually know which of these, if any, is the best policy. So I'm going to let you ponies in the Barn of Lords hammer it all out for me. If you make the best case, for National Service, I'll work with that; if Voluntary Service wins out, ditto; if neither does, ditto."

What I wasn't going to tell Blueblood was that I was also treating this as a test for the Barn of Lords. If they took any of these ideas, and passed a version which benefited one or more individual nobles at the expense of Equestrian society as a whole... then I would be able to work on subverting, reforming, or replacing that legislative body with a completely clear conscience.

Comments

[Forevermore]

Unbeknownst to Missy, and even to the Princesses, a skeletal crow watched from the window, wreathed in shadows that made it all but invisible to the senses. While it could not hear what they said directly, it memorized the pattern their lips made when they spoke and relayed the information to its mistress telepathically. She would know what to do.

[DataPacRat]

849605
What is this... ouin... dough... that you speak of?

[Forevermore]

849610 I dunno, I can't understand what you're saying !

[DataPacRat]

849618
Out of curiosity, which do you think SJ would find more interesting - a lipreading of a proposal for an Equestrian version of zombie survival squads... or the fact that her distant cousin, even without having any way to know about the skeletal crow's existence, is paranoid enough to have already taken precautions to make said crow's surveillance job nigh-infeasible (or at least much more difficult), at least for certain conversations? Which version would give SJ more to think about, would make for a better story?

[Forevermore]

849632 Probably the zombie survival guards, keep in mind Jack was a goddess, she's used to dealing with paranoid megalomaniacs (Hera in particular)

[DataPacRat]

849635
Fair enough. In that case - can we at least assume that Missy is sufficiently paranoid to avoid the rather obvious security lapse of holding a classified conversation anywhere near a window, and try to come up with a better technobabble/magibabble explanation for the skeletal crow catching any of said conversation?
For example, the previously-written secure conversation between Missy and the Princesses was held somewhere in a basement under the palace in Canterlot; and I seem to recall you having mentioned that the caves under Canterlot have some connection to a piece of Tartarus; so maybe SJ's current status with Tartarus is enough to let her crow sneak by the Princesses's privacy wards in a way they didn't anticipate.

[Forevermore]

849651 Fair enough, the comment was meant to just be funny anyways, I'm leaving similar comments in all the chessverse stories where Jack is featured as evidence that she's keeping track of everyone. Anything in the actual story would be hammered out better

[DataPacRat]

851070
I can live with that.

[TheEnemyCube]

849605 *British accent* Little did they know, they were being watched by a killer skeletal crow.

[AppleTank]

849651

Did you cause Tia and/or Luna to send their own pieces?
And dude, you prepare for anything and everything. ... I like your way of thinking. Can never be too sure the ninjas aren't attacking tonight.

(My OC)
Inside a dark security room, a shadowed humanoid stares at several rows of screens, each hovering over a being that was technically an extraterrestrial. He leaned back into his seat, chuckled at some of their antics, and lit a carrot in his mouth. A few minutes later, he twitched and looked around, as if he heard something. After spinning around a few times, he pulled out a wireless keyboard, pointed it a his head, and hit---

[DataPacRat]

853094
Did you cause Tia and/or Luna to send their own pieces?
I haven't been keeping sufficiently closer track of the other stories to tell if either of them have their own pieces in play. But if they do - then I'm entirely open to the possibility you suggest, especially if the other author is, as well.

And dude, you prepare for anything and everything. ... I like your way of thinking. Can never be too sure the ninjas aren't attacking tonight.
It's all part of the Methods of Rationality; one of the lessons from one of my favored philosophers reads:

... reality usually delivers results a little worse than the 'worst-case scenario'. It's called the planning fallacy, and the best way to fix it is to ask how long things took the last time you tried them. That's called using the outside view instead of the inside view. But when you're doing something new and can't do that, you just have to be really, really, really pessimistic. Like, so pessimistic that reality actually comes out better than you expected around as often and as much as it comes out worse. It's actually really hard to be so pessimistic that you stand a decent chance of undershooting real life.

[AppleTank]

845371
How do you make boxes?

853184
My classmate say that he always expects to fail his tests, then comes out pleasantly surprised. I have a hard time getting into that mindset

[DataPacRat]

853440
You might find this to be a good place to start learning about the planning fallacy, how to recognize it, how to deal with it, and how it relates to other correctable cognitive biases.

[PetitPoney]

Yay for Stargate references.

[Ziper Ace]

Ok I like the plans so far, it’s so cool and amazing