Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me

by DataPacRat

Experimental Method

That evening, I got a note from some of my contacts in the Royal archives that some new information on one of my subjects of interest had come in - specifically, Griffin the Griffin had sent some letters to the Princesses, which were now being filed securely away. Fortunately, I was on the Princesses' good side, so those letters weren't entirely secure from me. Most of them, I wasn't sure what to make of - they seemed to be nothing more than trolling. If there was a hidden code in them, I wasn't able to suss it out in ten minutes of consideration. The closest I could come to a hard conclusion was that either Griffin had been around Ponyville during Nightmare Night, or he was a brony, or had been in contact with someone who was.

There was, however, one letter which deserved further consideration:

Dear Princess Celestia,

Rather than my usual letter, I'm writing to tell you that I've figured out how to use magic. Considering that I'm not a unicorn, this is a rather large achievement. As for the details of my discovery.... NOT TELLING! What's wrong? Jealous?

Sincerely, Griffin.

If non-unicorns, even non-ponies, could use magic... then that could be a significant advantage, to whoever knew the secret.

There were a few main possibilities - that Griffin was lying, that he was mistaken, that this message had some content beyond the surface meaning... or that he was telling the truth. The first three would be hard to tell apart, but the latter was thought-provoking; I could grip the former into a group called the 'No Magic' option and call the latter 'Magic'. No, wait, there was plenty of other magic around the place - make it 'Magic' and 'More Magic'. It was possible that figuring this out requires some sort of resources Griffin had that weren't available to me; or that he had a source of surprising knowledge which required background understanding that I lacked - these would also fall under mere 'Magic'. But if that wasn't the case - then it was at least possible that a random brony dropped into Equestria would have some knowledge the locals lacked, which would let them figure it out - meaning that simply by having learned it was a possibility, I just might be able to now figure it out myself. Might.

Assuming Griffin was a brony, or had talked to someone who was, then it was probably safe to assume that he didn't know about Solomonoff's Lightsaber, the mathematically formalized version of Occam's Razor, since that wasn't a very common idea even on Earth; but he likely knew about the general idea of the scientific method. He might also know about other Earthly ideas about magic which might be relevant - myth, ancient religion, ordinary religion, pop-culture religion, pop-culture fiction, less mainstream fiction such as role-playing games, and/or skeptical inquiries that tested claims of spoon-benders and charlatans.

Running my mind through what I'd read, watched, and listened to about all of those... and looking through them through the filter of what I'd seen so far of Equestria... then a reasonable preliminary conclusion that "magic" involved some sort of power, like electricity, which could be gathered, collected, and occasionally released in clever ways that resulted in useful effects. Most of the hooved folk could pick things up with their hooves, despite their lack of fingers. I hadn't been able to until that time the other cows in the dairy had zapped my brains out - maybe I hadn't been 'charged up' until then. When unicorns exerted magic, there tended to be a glow around their horns... and, come to think about it, I didn't actually know what unicorn horns were made of. Maybe magical power was best channeled through some sort of hard, carbon-rich material, including keratin and bones? I might have to do some inquiry into respectful research using body parts, of animals or ponies - given ponies' vegetarian natures and dislike of killing, it was entirely possible that was something nopony would have looked into, while an ex-human might have.

Going back to human-based knowledge... then, assuming the magic-as-electricity analogy was at least partially right, I could think of four or five ways humans had come up, in myth and fiction, to fiddle around with magic. One was magic that came from the self - like psychic powers, or like Twilight had described unicorn magic to Pinkie when trying to research Pinkie Sense. Another was magical power stored in things rather than people - magical plants like poison joke, or the traditional +1 sword, or a ring of invisibility. Another was magic that was all around - maybe the whole world was a magic-item in a sense, or maybe magic power flowed through currents like ley-lines, or it was just kind of a free-floating 'stuff. Another was that magic wasn't all around here, but could be called from afar - opening portals to some other dimension. And maybe ordinary people or ponies didn't have much magic, but they could call upon more powerful beings that did - the ancient Greeks had invoked their gods to protect them, many modern-day Catholics made requests of saints, and many ponies called upon Celestia in times of need. Any of these could be the way Griffin had found.

Another thing to consider is that even if Griffin found a way to use magic, that didn't mean it was a way everypony could use. If he was another human dropped into Equestria like I was, then that might be enough of a difference from the locals to let him - and maybe me - use magic that the locals couldn't. Maybe the method used to drop us here left open some sort of residual gate, which was something that magical power could be used for. Or maybe he was able to just call on his Game patron, whoever that might be, to do stuff that said patron wouldn't do for just anypony. I thought about my self-described game-player and multi-great-aunt, Athena... and decided to hold off on starting to beg her for favors. I thought about the gateway-thing... and, at least at this stage, the only way I could think of to tell the difference between that, and between some sort of inherent magic, was if I found a way to use magic that other ponies couldn't.

Which left, as areas of research, personal, item-based, or universal magic. Personal magic - if I could play unicorn, and will for something to happen, and it did, then that might be how things worked. Universal magic - if I could use magic in one place but not another, that would be evidence for that. Item-based - if I could find the right animal, vegetable, or mineral, and use magic with it but not without, then this one was likely the winner. (Of course, more than one of these could be true at the same time, but at this point, figuring out even just one was challenge enough.)

One of my favored rationalist philosophers once wrote: "When there's a confusing problem and you're just starting out and you have a falsifiable hypothesis, go test it. Find some simple, easy way of doing a basic check and do it right away. Don't worry about designing an elaborate course of experiments that would make a grant proposal look impressive to a funding agency. Just check as fast as possible whether your ideas are false before you start investing huge amounts of effort in them." So, what could I do that would be a quick check of any of these?

I didn't have enough data to tell whether any locations were more or less magical than others - but I just happened to have created a small bureaucracy dedicated to researching whatever odd projects I came up with. So I wrote a letter to the Dairy, asking for a set of maps of known magical, cultural, historical, or legendary importance, at a variety of scales. If I was able to see any interesting patterns therein, I could proceed from there. Otherwise, whatever experiments I ran in one spot, I'd simply have to try in other places as well, to see if any worked better in one place rather than another.

For personal magic... was there anything I could really try that countless cows, jealous of unicorns, wouldn't have tried before? Probably not - but, perhaps, an ex-human might be able to succeed where they failed. I collected a few items, and made a few more simple ones - candles, dice, some quickie Zener cards, a pendulum, and the like. I doubted that when Griffin talked about 'magic', he was referring to some process which tilted the odds by five percent, so I wasn't going to worry about looking for a faint signal among experimental noise - I was looking for something reasonably dramatic and unmistakable. And so, with Cheerilee's amused assistance and bemused cooperation, we played some simple games - trying to light a candle, or put one out, or lift one by concentrating; predicting the roll of dice, or influencing them as they fell; ditto with the swing of a pendulum; guessing cards before, during, or after the other drew them.

Needless to say, we failed totally and completely at every one of those tasks. But at least I established a baseline for future reference. And spent some enjoyable time with Cheerilee, which was always a good idea, whatever the excuse.

I considered what I knew about supposedly 'real' magic, in its various forms. The Golden Dawn had put together what was probably the most comprehensive synthesis of magical symbolism, rites, and techniques, based on principles dating from antiquity; and most modern-day pop-culture magic, such as crystal-healing and lighting candles, were simplified versions of those same ideas; with Wiccan rituals falling somewhere in the middle. Depending on how elaborate you wanted to get, such things involved purifying the body and mind, establishing a ritual space, entering the right state of mind, using the right physical tools, speaking the right names and words, moving in the right gestures, exerting one's will, and... something was supposed to happen. It had been a long while since I'd looked at any hermetic texts, even longer since I finally found an actual Egyptian-English dictionary, Hebrew qabalah had always left me cold, and I'd never figured out Enochian in the first place. The closest I remembered to anything of the sort were from old editions of D&D which actually listed what magical components and words spells used (before the "D&D is Satan!" crowd made TSR turn things softer and fluffier), Harry Potter pseudo-Latin, and similar nonsense. Which might not necessarily be nonsense here; I didn't actually know what sources Griffin might have used as his inspiration. Similarly, I wouldn't be able to demonstrate a magical gesture to save my life. (And I certainly hoped it never came to that.)

Thus, while I might not have been able to do much if those were significant aspects of magic, I could make some good attempts at some of the others. So we took one of Cheerilee's spare rooms, and gave it a good spring cleaning. Then the two of us took a bath. (Ponyville was essentially a nudist colony, and the two of us had spent most of our time together in the buff, so one would think there wouldn't be anything special about bathing together. One who thought that would turn out to be wrong.) Finally, we spent a nice long while meditating and clearing our minds.

After all that, we gave the magical tests another go. With identical results.

A quick test of location-based magic would be easy enough - just bring along the test materials and try again elsewhere, like when I headed back to Canterlot, or perhaps I could take a day-trip back to the henge where I'd met Athena and the floaty Goth girl. But item-based magic... had some possibilities. If body-parts were the key, then I'd probably have to wait until I got back to Canterlot, where I'd be able to try various things discreetly, without needlessly upsetting anyone. But I knew quite well at least one plant that could do magic - poison joke - and one animal - the cockatrice who'd stoned me and then been squished. Unfortunately, such things were rather dangerous to fiddle with, due to their natural defenses. But one of the more popular forms of pop-culture magic on Earth was using crystals - and here on Equestria, gems that would be priceless back there were cheap enough for Spike to eat. Cheerilee didn't have any just laying around the house, so we went for a shopping trip, picking up various sundries as well as, well, just about one of each kind of gem or crystal that was being sold - with The Dairy picking up the tab.

Back at Cheerilee's, after a dinner, a scrub-up, and a quickie meditation, we tried fiddling around with the crystals in various ways. Trying to push our will through them, simply focusing and concentrating on them, aiming them, holding them in different ways, rubbing them, stroking them, and generally making great fools of ourselves. We didn't mind - nobody was watching us but each other, and even if we weren't accomplishing anything, at least we were having fun not accomplishing it together.

Eventually, Cheerilee had to head to bed, to be up in time for school, but I was able to set my own schedule, and still had some things left on my list to try out. So we kissed each other good night, and I kept on trying all that I'd been able to think of.

Somewhen after midnight - I'm not exactly sure when - I was getting a little punch-drunk from being awake so long. (Which didn't bode well if I ever had to try to fall asleep without anyone nearby.) So I'd gone from 'try everything I could think of' to 'try anything that won't wake up Cheerilee or scare the wildlife'. I juggled. I sang. I tried standing on my head. I tried using two different crystals at once, the way you needed two different metals to get a battery to work. That latter reminded my about my general thought that magic might be like electricity... and I remembered the vision of the coyote claiming I was a battery... so I grabbed a couple of pieces of copper wire, taped them to the ends of my horns, and touched the ends to a piece of amethyst.

Immediately upon doing so, I lost my train of thought, but when I focused on what I was doing again, I noticed that the purple crystal had broken in half.

I assumed I'd finally managed to bang it enough to cleave it along an internal flaw, so I simply picked up a nice little sapphire, and stuck the wires to it again.

When I brought my attention back to matters at hoof, I saw that the blue carborundum had also shattered, this time into a few pieces.

"Hm," I said, "That's funny..."

---

(Author's Note: This chapter is an indirect crossover with Chapter 32 of BlackWing's story, Griffin the Griffin.

Comments

[nemryn]

Unfortunately, given how she apparently zones out when absorbing gem-magic, this method appears to potentially be mind-destroying just like the cow circle.

[Forevermore]

Missy would probably benefit greatly by a visit with Grimoire, as he was a wizard on Earth and would probably know a great deal more about magic and how it works than Griffin or a normal unicorn would.

Just ask Twilight for directions.

[DataPacRat]

909927
At this stage of Missy's story, Twilight and the rest of the Mane Six are far, far away, just about to meet Griffin. It'll be a little while before they're back in Ponyville to ask - and since Twi left Spike behind, and the Mane Six's exact location isn't really known, even the new Pegasus Express would have trouble getting messages to and from them anytime soon.

[Forevermore]

909946 Ah right, forgot where you were in the time-line for a bit. Still my point stands that in order to understand how magic works more fully she would need to discuss the topic with someone who has experience with it in multiple worlds. A god would be the best choice but as we've already seen with Jack they tend to prefer to keep the majority of their knowledge to themselves through fairly-justifiable-if-selfish reasons.

If you do decide you want to use Grimoire as that source let me know, I'll be publishing Ch. 2 of his story soon which will cement his place in the world and where he can be found (skewing the "around-the-world" ideal of the majority of fics and having his adventures take place largely in one area so he's easy to locate) so the character is pretty open for use.

[Langly]

Hmm, she tries a lot of things, my first idea would have been "Ask Loco". She was able tell her some things already so asking her or other old cows would have been my first try.

[DataPacRat]

911845
Hee. Missy was back in Ponyville with Cheerilee when she got the news of Griffin's letters; and Loco is up in Canterlot. But you've just anticipated the first lines of my next chapter: that Missy is heading back to the royal dairy to consult with such bovines, when... well, I won't spoil what happens next just yet.

[Dusky Flower]

783415

What do you mean? The game wasn't started with those, so...

[Organized Chaos]

Perhaps Missy needs a talk with the Evermind.