The woman who was not Sarah Kaplan was not supposed to be here.
She knew that the moment she woke up, with that same sense she always got whenever she was breaking some important rule. It was a sense of energy, of electricity and movement—the adrenaline she might need to escape should her ruse be discovered.
Yet there was nowhere for her to run. She was somewhere closed, with barely enough room for her to twitch. There was slime all around her, constricting her limbs. Was that why her hands felt so numb? And there was something wrong with her back…
Trying to think through her last memories was like remembering a dream three hours after waking up. She’d been somewhere, her biggest ruse yet. She’d… paid off… someone… got someone drunk… why? Why had she been sneaking aboard a Pioneering Society station, of all places?
“Join the Society and live forever. Volunteer your talents for the future of the human race.” She could practically hear the jingle in her ears even now.
They hadn’t wanted her. Sarah wasn’t some brilliant young talent, wasn’t some prodigy or master of her craft. She was a con artist, one of the best—and Earth already had enough of those.
“Please direct your attention upward, Sarah Kaplan,” said a soothing voice in her ear. She blinked, trying to focus strange eyes, following the direction of the noise. There above her was a little screen, set into her plastic prison. It was still dripping with moisture, just like everything else, though at least she didn’t feel like she was swimming.
“Fabrication complete, Sarah. Welcome to Pioneering Society designation Sanctuary. Location: Equus, Tantalum Sector, Milky Way. Before you can be decanted and your duties begin, you must pass a basic neurological exam to ensure fabrication was successful and you will be capable of fulfilling your duties. I am required to inform you that according to Pioneering Society Guidelines Rule 19, paragraph 3-9, you will not be decanted until after this test is complete. If you believe you need more time before the test begins, I can allow you one standard day to wake to full cognizance. Should you fail this test, this instance will be recycled and a new one will be created.”
She shivered in horror, feeling some strange twitching on her back. Nothing felt right—her body was an absolute mess. They took my fucking genetics. What the hell went wrong?
She wasn’t Sarah Kaplan, not really. She was not a member of the Pioneering Society and she knew nothing about how it operated. Yet she could understand “this instance will be recycled.” There was no mistaking what that implied. But I have to become her. That name is my name now. Until I can escape.
“I’m ready for the test!” she croaked, her voice coming out high pitched and squeaky. Why did it sound so weird? She felt around with her tongue, inside a mouth with a few too-sharp canines, but otherwise things seemed more or less the same.
“Very well. Please watch the screen carefully. Follow the instructions, and ask if you require clarification at any time. These exercises are not timed.”
I bet that’s a lie, she thought. I wonder if there’s a gun hidden in here. Or maybe it electrocutes me if I fail. If this test asked her anything about the Pioneering Society, she was fucked.
Fortunately for Sarah, it didn’t. The test was much more basic than that, with simple comprehension questions, memorization, spatial reasoning—all the things a grade schooler would’ve passed getting through their secondary school evals. Had the computer not informed her that she would be killed if she failed, the exam would’ve been effortless. As it was she still hesitated more than once, second-guessing every answer. How many mistakes would she have to make for it to kill her?
More than she ended up making. “Performance is within margin of error,” announced the computer, when the test was complete. “Please prepare to be decanted. Many newly fabricated citizens experience a brief burning sensation as the outside air makes contact with skin and eyes. This discomfort will pass. Before the process is authorized, there is one final question: Do you, Sarah Kaplan, swear to serve and complete your duties as a munitions engineer to the best of your ability? Do you believe you are mentally and physically capable of doing so?”
More death questions, Sarah thought. Probably the Pioneering Society trained its people to know what this meant. Well, Sarah wasn’t stupid. She hadn’t stolen a place in line at Neuroimprint Central Recording by being an idiot. It had taken enormous planning and forethought—paying off the right people, sneaking into the right offices, faking the right records. The fake had to last, it had to survive inspection. If the Pioneering Society found out, they could just delete her from the system.
The fact I’m here to think about it means I succeeded. Well done, past me. You’re a fucking legend. I hope you had an awesome life.
The memories all felt like they belonged to her, but she knew they didn’t really. That had been another person, the person who stepped into the scanner and went on to live the rest of her life. That person, who knew how long dead now, had given her a new lease on life. This new body might still feel like her hands were numb, but she could feel no trace of damage to her left eye, and none of the pain aching in her bones from a cancer that had been slowly killing her.
I bloody did it. “Yes! I can’t wait to be the most awesome munitions engineer there ever was.” Until I can sneak away and you never see me again.
Sarah didn’t give two shits about expanding the horizons of humankind. Humankind owed her, so far as she was concerned. She’d been fucked, and being here was the payback she was due. Her second chance.
“Beginning decanting procedure. I look forward to your upcoming service with the Pioneering Society. There is much to do.”
There was a grinding sound, then something began spraying on her from above. It was water—washing the dried slime from her body. It moved rapidly down her skin, forcing her to confront whole patches of skin that didn’t feel like they belonged. She held out one arm into the spray, and in the glow of the little screen she could make out the unmistakable stump there instead of a hand.
She flexed it, and felt something small and fleshy move slightly on the inside, but that was it. Doesn’t look damaged. The other hand was a similar story, like it had never been there at all. What the hell am I?
She soon got her answer. The drawer opened, dumping her out onto a padded rubber mat with lots of little holes in it. For some time all she did was lie there, unable to fight against the pull of gravity. She flopped about for a little while, trying to rise to her feet—but she didn’t succeed. It was brilliantly bright all around her, much brighter than the Biofab drawer had been. Where was she, anyway?
Sarah looked around, and found she was in a small room, alone except for a mirror, her drawer, and a pile resting on a low shelf. It looked like a folded uniform, with a huge towel resting on top of it. Guess they’re past the point of just one person if they have a whole space set aside for this.
The mirror told her all she needed to know about her appearance. She stared for well over a minute, unwilling to believe what she was looking at. The body there was… wrong. She looked like something that had escaped a petting zoo, or one of those freaks those habitats off Earth could breed for you outside the reach of the Ceres Proclamation. Her eyes were huge, but with slitted pupils that darted nervously about. Her ears twitched and moved above her head.
She was a horse—a horse with too-cute proportions and a blue-gray coat of damp fur. There was even a little mark on her butt, like a brand.
“Engineer,” said a much-more-natural voice, one that might very well be a person instead of a computer. There isn’t a camera in here, is there? I’m fucking naked! “Please feel free to take as much time as you require to adjust to your new body. For your information, you were fabricated along with the entire 75th Ranger Regiment. As you are a civilian contractor and not enlisted, you were put into storage to be decanted last, along with the other civilian contractors.”
“Who are you?” she asked the voice, finding her own still sounded high and squeaky. “My… commander?” That was a military word, wasn’t it? That was the sort of thing that she should have.
“I am not,” answered the voice. “My name is Forerunner—the general intelligence that runs the city of Othar and its future colonies. Should you require anything, Sarah, please feel free to ask.”
“What the hell am I?” Now that she knew she wasn’t a biped, it was a little easier to get up. She just had to pretend she was a kid again, playing on all fours. A little pressure and she could rise up into a standing position, however wobbly. Can’t horses run within a few hours of being born?
“Your biosleeve was based on Alien Lifeform #FF35F, local designation ‘Thestral.’ I assure you, that new body is not as disabled as it appears. The native population is quite proficient with hooves for accomplishing basic tasks, and those wings are not vestigial. With practice, you will be able to fly, along with many other things.”
Sarah stared back at her reflection, trying to move the wings. She could feel the skin, all bunched up and damp with moisture. Somehow, this was her. It would be her until she died. Which will be sooner than I like if Forerunner finds out what I did. She had to be a convincing munitions engineer until she could find a way out.
I can probably just blame anything I don’t know on the fabrication, right? I’ll just pretend I’m freezer burned. That wasn’t the right word—she hadn’t been frozen. But it was the closest one she could think of. “That sounds fun. This planet must be… one of those low-gravity places, then?” She hopped—and found it felt exactly as she remembered. “I guess I’m adapted to it, so I don’t notice.”
“No,” Forerunner responded. “Sanctuary possesses a local subjective gravity of 1.02 standard at sea level. Your method of flight is… well, it would be too much for you to take in with a brain that’s been freshly printed. For now, just understand that we have discovered an incredibly advanced alien civilization, with technology well beyond what you remember. Sanctuary blends technology into its structure so completely that many of the locals take what it can do for them for granted. They describe it as ‘magic’ for simplicity’s sake. A more detailed report can be made available to you once you’re ready to leave the decanting room.”
Sarah wasn’t in much of a rush. She practiced walking in a little circle on the rubber floor, falling over more than once as she adjusted to the strange body. But in here there was no one to laugh at her, so no rush to get it done any quicker. She found she was drying naturally, so much so that by the time she finally picked up the towel, she didn’t have much to do with it. She wanted to brush her frizzy hair, which had fluffed up around her head like a weird lion’s mane, but there were no tools present for that.
Only the uniform, with the name that she had stolen visible on the collar.
As she looked at it, Forerunner’s voice came in from above her again. So you are watching me. Sarah knew very little about Pioneering Society colonies, but she did know that they trusted an AI to run them completely. She would never have privacy from it, until she escaped. “The dress code has been adjusted. The standard class C uniform now includes NOTHING. Class A uniform is unchanged, however. Until your first duty shift, you will only be required to dress in class C or below.
Sarah stiffened. If she’d been drinking something, she probably would’ve spit it out. “Hold on.” She turned, staring up at the part of wall where the speaker was hidden. Maybe the camera was up there too? “You just told me that the uniform is… nothing?” She twisted around to demonstrate for him. “As in, naked?”
“That is correct,” Forerunner answered. “Few members of the ISMU have yet adjusted to this requirement, and wear class C jumpsuits even though they are not required. Notice of order: this requirement applies to native ‘pony’ races only. Human biosleeve and synthsleeve uniform requirements have not been adjusted. But your biosleeve is a ‘pony’, so the new requirements apply to you.”
“But most of the others are still wearing these,” Sarah said, turning back to the uniform and lifting it from the table. The zipper had a huge grip, almost wide enough for her hoof to get around. It was already unzipped, ready for her to struggle into it if she wanted.
I bet this doesn’t feel great on fur, even if it is soft.
But she was about to find out, regardless. As much as there was something secretly appealing about leaving the jumpsuit hidden here—breaking yet another one of society’s unspoken rules—she didn’t want to do anything that would make her stand out. Such things could wait for once she had a good idea of what was outside. Maybe it was the kind of world where she could run away immediately, or maybe she’d be trapped in “Othar” for years. She would have to leave this room to find out.
Sarah found the jumpsuit had obviously been made with ponies in mind. It was incredibly flexible in the places it needed to be, so she could get it on with much less battle than might be expected. There were large spandex holes for her wings, and another one for her tail, which was good since everything she used to cover was all tucked away back there. I guess that means ponies could just wear shorts like guys do, and not have to worry about showing anything off. She wasn’t sure if she liked that.
What kind of colony has a nudist dress code?
“I’m ready,” she finally said, after maybe an hour total in the tiny decanting room. She wore the jumpsuit, which fit her perfectly, even if the name sewn to the collar wasn’t hers. She glanced at it one last time, making sure she had it memorized. Nobody can ever know my real name. Well, nobody here. But there were aliens on this planet, and she bet they’d care a lot less about who she was. Maybe her new start wouldn’t be around humans at all.
The door swung open of its own accord, into a long hallway also lined with rubber mats. There were lots of little doors on either side of the hall, all exactly the same as hers. The ceiling felt like it was at the right height, which probably meant the room was smaller than she was used to. Unless she was wrong about how small she felt.
There was nobody else here, which was a little concerning. Just a few flashing lights leading her eyes towards the open doorway at the end of the hall. Sarah followed the lights fairly slowly, her steps cautious. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself and set off alarm bells about who she was.
How well did they train these people, anyway? Did the Pioneering Society have some kind of secret sauce it used to prepare people for waking up as weird aliens? They couldn’t, could they?
Sarah had no answer to that—and she could probably never ask. Since she should’ve received the training, any questions she asked would only warn those around her that she didn’t know things she should have. I’ve got to get my hands on one of their handbooks. Maybe some hands while I’m at it.
Around the corner was a larger hallway, with more rubber mats along the wall leading to a brightly lit set of doors with unmistakable medical insignia. That would make sense—she would probably want a real person looking at her instead of a computer program. If there had been problems with her fabrication, the earlier she learned about it the better.
Her suspicions about being smaller were confirmed in that hallway, with its roof and doorways towering over her head. At a guess, she supposed she was about three feet tall, and maybe four feet long. She could probably reach the knobs if she really propped herself up to do it.
But she didn’t have to as she approached medical—they swung open for her.
There wasn’t a single human inside. At least the room wasn’t empty, though—there were a dozen drones, vaguely human in shape with wheels or tracks to move around. There were several doctors here, most of which wore adorable little medical coats over jumpsuits like hers. Well, like hers, except most of them had military patches or insignia. The same company patch was prominent on one shoulder, though. These were her people—or the people of the person whose identity she’d stolen.
“Ah, our late bloomer is finally waking up. Can’t wait to check the last box,” someone spoke from behind the desk—a little horse like she was, though her wings were feathery and her hair had been styled and braided. She was cute—for a horse, anyway. “You’re… Sarah Kaplan, yes? Right on time.” She gestured behind her, to one of the little stalls. “Dr. Born will want to see you before anything else… I’d give you to one of ours, but she’s bored out of her mind all the time. Maybe if I give her something to do she’ll complain a little less about being here.”
“Sure,” Sarah muttered, slowing a little as she passed the desk. “Maybe drinks after? What time do you get off?”
“Sorry kid, I think your brain is still frozen. Maybe think about that some and ask me tomorrow.” Though that was a dismissal—Sarah could recognize the tone. She was just trying to be nice about it.
“Yeah.” She could take the hint, looking away awkwardly. “That’s probably it. I think I might be a little frozen still.”
She wandered back into the medical bay, towards the suggested stall. The others were mostly empty—aside from a few minor implantation surgeries. Most of them appeared to be hoof-surgeries, though she didn’t have a stomach for blood and so she didn’t look too closely.
The orderly from up front slipped past her, offering the pony in the back stall a stack of paper with Sarah’s fake name on it. The doctor did look a little grumpy. She also wasn’t wearing unit patches—she was only wearing a plain white dress under a jacket, short and open-backed. Didn’t that mean she wasn’t covering… Sarah felt her ears flattening and a little heat rising to her cheeks. Guess someone was braver than I was.
“You,” the pony muttered, her voice so bored that it strangled anything Sarah might’ve been thinking. “You did so good getting that jumpsuit on. Now get it off, and climb up on the bed.” She stepped out of the stall, moving with one hoof to shut the privacy screen. How she could grab the cord to pull it without any hands on the ends of her limbs, Sarah couldn’t tell.
“Oh, and will you be wanting the implants? Everybody gets them now. Lucky bastards. There’s no justice anymore.”
“What implants?” Sarah stepped inside the stall, one hoof hesitating near the zipper. She didn’t pull it down yet, though. There were people outside, some of them male. The doctor would see her regardless, but she didn’t want them to. “I thought we already had all the implants. Enhanced bodies and shit.”
“You have all the modifications specified in the Pioneering Society Handbook. That doesn’t mean you have all the implants. There are others… more destructive, I guess.” She looked annoyed as she walked into the office after all, tapping the screen a few times. It changed to display a cross-section of someone’s pony leg, with some of the flesh removed. A little claw was hidden inside, which would emerge from three points of the leg and then conceal itself in fake fur when not in use.
Goddamn, what year is it? Fucking space shit right here. “Yes,” Sarah said, without even glancing at the list of warnings. “I’ll take two.”
“Everyone says that,” said the doctor, barely stifling a groan. She slid past Sarah, then shut the screen. “Get naked. I’ll put you in line for surgery once your exam is over.”
Sarah did so, with considerably less enthusiasm than she might’ve normally had for following that instruction. After all the hard work to just get these clothes to go on in the first place… At least the jumpsuit was just one piece. “Ponies” seemed less delicate than humans, in that they didn’t seem to need underwear.
Her exam went exactly as she would’ve expected. Sarah sowed the seeds of her future memory problems by mentioning them during the interview, though not in such a way as would imply that she couldn’t do her job. She made sure Dr. Born put that note in her file, then did her best to excel at everything else. It would be the one dark spot on an otherwise spotless record, instead of the evidence that she should go into a dumpster. But they wouldn’t kill someone once they got out, right? I must get human rights eventually. So she thought, but this was the Pioneering Society. They hadn’t been drowning in controversy for no reason.
She had no idea what to expect from the surgery, beyond what she’d seen with a glance in the other booths. Apparently what to expect was a big plastic thing to stick her legs into, and a small army of human-sized medical drones to do the actual work.
“This procedure is not considered medically necessary,” Dr. Born recited, sounding incredibly bored. As she said it, the little robots rushed around, bringing in fresh plastic crates of the implants and little carts of medicine. “As a result, accepting it will impose a ten-percent modifier on the length of your mandatory service contract. That contract is currently estimated at… five standard years.”
The doctor rolled her eyes at that. “They should really do something about these numbers. Five years made sense for humans, but not for fucking immortals.” She proffered a computation surface, her flat tone returning. “Only sign here if you accept these terms.”
“Uh…” Sarah stared down at her stump of an arm, then just shrugged and pressed it on the touchscreen. “What was that you just said? About… being immortal? We cured aging since they scanned me?”
“I have no idea what we did, since Forerunner isn’t allowed to unpack any of his later updates. But somebody did, and I guess that’s good enough. Congratulations, you’re a prisoner of an alien god. I hope you weren’t suicidal before, that’s all I’m saying. Because it literally will not allow you to die.”
The doctor hesitated before continuing. “Weeeeeeeell, not in the ways that matter. You’re probably thinking something completely different right now. Your body will still die. But your mind is somewhere else.” She pointed at the mark on her flank. “That right there, that’s proof. Harmony has you in its clutches. Still, I guess you got in at the right time, because the rules still say five years.”
She took the computation surface back, then brought over a nitrogen needle. How she held it in a hoof, without any visible implants, was impressive. Like she was clutching it there with an invisible hand.
“See you in a few hours,” she muttered, pressing the needle up against Sarah’s neck. She drifted away into unconsciousness.
Flurry Heart leaned backward, trying to take in the text on the massive surface before her. It was so large, so unimaginably vast, that she pictured it as larger than Equestria itself. Yet it wasn’t—she knew that on an intellectual level. A surface that looked like it went on forever was really only about ten kilometers long and less than half that wide.
Now that she’d clamped on, at least it didn’t feel like she was spinning anymore. “Lucky, where are you?” she called, searching the area behind her with a few sweeping glances. She barely knew how this stupid machine worked—various little gestures would turn on all sorts of things, like a little flame that emerged from one of her legs and didn’t turn off again, tracing a black burned patch along with her as she walked.
A few seconds later and something rested a leg on her shoulder—or that’s what it felt like, anyway. She couldn’t see a face—but that was less disconcerting now that she was used to it. “I found the entry hatch,” Lucky said, gesturing along the massive metal surface back the way they’d come. “It’s this way.”
Flurry Heart turned, following her. “You used the writing, didn’t you?” she asked, a little of her annoyance creeping in. Lucky could cheat in various ways, and the cheatiest of all was being able to read anything they saw.
“Yep,” Lucky answered from up ahead, much more coordinated than Flurry Heart was on two legs. She walked like she’d been born to do it, never wobbling or looking like she was about to slam into the deck. “There’s a ship designation on the side here. I know this thing was called the N.E.S. Agamemnon.”
“Doesn’t seem like much of a ship,” Flurry Heart muttered, as they came up to the entrance. She had to fight the disorientation as, from Flurry’s perspective, they walked up over the edge of a ramp, and the direction of down changed. Yet there was also a force pulling her backward, like it was trying to send her flying off into space. Fortunately for her, her hooves were firmly attached, so that didn’t happen.
Didn’t happen until they walked all the way up and around the ramp there, and the direction of “down” lined up with the force pushing on her.
At least these weird bodies never ran out of strength, or got tired. She wasn’t sure she could’ve managed it as a pony.
But then again, even after all this time, Flurry Heart couldn’t manage much as herself. Too many memories. “It’s open to space. I’ve seen what that does.”
Death with absolute certainty was what it did. At least—for all the species that lived in Equestria. There were probably bodies that could live out here. If machines could do it, then…
“I think it might’ve been able to close… or maybe there was an energy shield to hold the air in,” Lucky said from up ahead. Despite how tall Flurry Heart expected to be walking on two legs, the hallway was at just the right height, with a sealed door and a dark control panel beside her.
Lucky leaned over, taking one of her upper legs with her own and using the spindly “hands” on the end to touch something. The fire stopped. “We might need that blowtorch later,” she said, though not as peremptorily as she could’ve. Lucky didn’t mind Flurry taking longer for things like this. Or anything, really.
She was the best friend a pony could hope for.
“I don’t recognize this interface…” she said, pulling off a little panel near the door and letting it clatter to the ground beside them. “But… yeah, there’s a manual override. Says right here.” She reached in, and started twisting a valve on the inside.
Without magic, these hand things are pretty useful. It was too bad the only way to copy them back on Equus was surgery—sometimes it was nice not to worry about trying or concentration when she just wanted to do something simple like turn the pages of a book.
The door inched upward as Lucky spun, until it was about half as high as they were. But Flurry Heart could already feel some of her hope leaking away—there was no atmosphere emerging from within, no blast of air buffeting them. Harmony was probably right about this one too.
Not giving up. Who knows what might be in here? A light attached to Lucky’s shoulder switched on, shining into the dark interior of the huge, multi-segmented ship. Lucky waited for her to go in first, then followed close behind. “If you were a survivor, where would you be?”
“I would… have put where I was going in my computer,” Lucky responded.
There was no computer obvious through the doorway, though there were plenty of other things. They looked like little suits, about the same size they were. Most of them were missing, though one or two still hung on racks near the wall. There was much debris scattered around the room—bits of bent metal and tools and little things that might’ve been computation surfaces.
None of it looked quite like what Lucky and her kind used in Othar, but it was similar. Like something made by their cousins, maybe. Or maybe their children.
“At least there aren’t any bodies,” Lucky mused, turning over one of the fallen suits. There was no corpse inside, nothing except a few dangling wires. “I wonder how long this thing has been floating here.”
“Over a hundred thousand years,” Harmony answered over the radio, its voice clear despite the intervening distance. Indeed, even if they’d still been outside, Flurry Heart knew she wouldn’t have been able to look behind her and see Equus. Their star was barely visible—the habitat itself was quickly lost against it, even with mechanical eyes. “But that makes little difference in the void. Much decay relies on the presence of an atmosphere, or at least damaging radiation. Protected by the body of the cylinder itself, the Agamemnon has remained largely unchanged since the survivors evacuated. I could give you more—”
“NO!” Flurry Heart screamed. Her voice didn’t echo—there was no atmosphere aboard, no sound at all really. That was an illusion of perception. But it still felt like screaming, so that much was real. “No no no! Shut up!” She stomped one hoof, and suddenly she was back in her body.
There was a slight mechanical hiss as the connection to her implant was severed, and a transparent cable clattered against her seat. The restraints holding her—preventing her body from doing anything while her mind was elsewhere—released her, and she went stumbling back from the controls.
The drone interface room had four such chairs, built less than a week ago. No one had used it more than Flurry Heart, even if she hadn’t learned it as fast as the others.
A few seconds later, and Lucky Break shook free of her restraints, letting the cable detach from the back of her neck. Somewhere more than a million kilometers away, the metal bodies they’d been using would have folded up for storage, still attached to the ground with their magnets but no longer moving.
It didn’t matter. Flurry Heart had gotten plenty of them completely destroyed. Harmony didn’t seem to care, and neither did Forerunner. They weren’t people, they were toys. Toys they could use to visit dangerous places.
“It’s okay,” Lucky muttered from beside her. She was shorter than Flurry Heart was, clumsier, and still next to useless with her magic despite having had her horn for over a year. Even so, Flurry Heart was the one who felt inadequate. Here she stood, beside the pony who had saved the world. A princess in her own right, and what was she? She hadn’t saved anything—she’d been born this way. Her very birth had even put the Crystal Empire in danger, years ago.
“Hey.” Lucky met her eyes, suddenly glaring. “You’re doing it again, Flurry. Take some deep breaths, and relax. We don’t have to keep doing this.”
“I want to keep doing this,” she argued, slumping onto her haunches and glaring at the chair. “I know I’m useless… I know this is slower because of me… but we have to keep looking. We have to know.”
“The location of those survivors is known,” said Harmony’s voice around them. Harmony—the eyes that always watched. Not to destroy, as Celestia had forced her to see, but not quite to protect, either. Flurry Heart imagined that Harmony was still waiting to destroy Equestria, if only they stepped out of line. Knowing her, she would probably be the one to do it.
She hadn’t yet, though. And nopony else seemed worried about it anymore. Harmony denied it, promising that it would only interfere if ponies tried to damage the ring or escape it. But why should she believe it? How did she know it wasn’t lying to her right now?
At least she could trust a few things. She could trust Lucky, and she could trust the machine called Forerunner. That was something to cling to.
“I don’t think that’s the point,” Lucky answered, addressing Harmony without looking in any particular direction. “We know you know everything. But discovering for ourselves is important too. If we wanted you to just teach us everything instantly, we would’ve asked.”
“It would make this easier,” Harmony said. Its voice sounded annoyed, though it had not bothered sending them a body, which always made Flurry Heart feel a little uncomfortable. But magic was magic, even if Harmony was really some kind of machine. A machine she lived on, along with everypony else she’d ever known, and everything they’d ever made. Existence was dust. “We predict it is inevitable that all individuals will eventually reach a point of maximum complexity and converge as a unilateral intelligence. At this point, we will exploit the physical universe with maximum efficiency. Your delay only prolongs the inevitable.”
Lucky stepped in front of Flurry, one wing still protectively over her. It felt like the sort of thing a friend should do. “Maybe. We still don’t want to. You can waste your time trying to convince someone else.”
And so it did. There was no sound, but Flurry Heart could tell when it had gone. The magic burning in the room like an invisible fog was suddenly clear, and the threat faded into the background.
But it’s still there, waiting to kill us. Waiting for me to make the mistake that dooms everyone.
Still, Flurry Heart felt herself relaxing as the presence of Harmony retreated. It was always watching while they controlled the drones, as though it were afraid that they would decide to fly away and never come back. But once they finished, it left them alone.
“I didn’t pick this one because I thought it was gonna have survivors, anyway,” Lucky muttered, moving a little closer and lowering her voice to a whisper. “I’m sure Harmony would’ve helped them all move down here a long time ago. For all we know, you might be one of them.”
That wasn’t what she needed to hear right now. Her ears flattened, and she looked away. “I dunno…”
Lucky either couldn’t tell, or purposefully ignored her discomfort. “Forerunner says this O’Neill Cylinder is structurally intact. Everything that could fail probably has, and we might have to gut the whole thing… but most of the raw materials would be on board. Forerunner says he could probably use the material from the three arms to get one of them habitable again.”
Flurry rose to her hooves, still feeling confused. Her friend was racing away down one of her strange avenues of thought, barely within reach. It was times like this that made her feel stupid.
At least her friend realized this time, because she slowed down. “Harmony’s contract with Othar doesn’t say we can’t leave the ring; it says we can’t leave the system.” She pointed up into the air, grinning. “We could live somewhere without Harmony breathing down our necks all the time. Or… at least, not as much as it does now.”
“Oh.” Flurry Heart didn’t much care where she lived, so long as it wasn’t in the Crystal Empire. And so long as Lucky was there.
That was important too.
Why did Forerunner make another pony when the problem with human bodies and Equestrian prions has been solved?
And why is Starscribe introducing a new character at this point of the story?
8892109
I've said before in these comments--but given how many of them there are, I expect many readers wouldn't have noticed. I intend the Epilogue to be about the same length as one of the previous acts. It will be its own self-contained narrative--a novella taking place a little over a year after the events of the main story. I think this will give me the opportunity to explore the universe in the ways I want--to show how the people and societies developed-- without needing to write a sequel.
I suppose this makes the epilogue a kindof mini-sequel unto itself.
A con artist getting into the Pioneering Society is rather interesting, especially considering that they apparently know nothing of their actual job.
I really like that you're doing these epilogues. I hope you might consider doing one between Celestia and Twilight, because I feel that Twilight deserves some form of closure from Celestia.
You know what... When you think about it it really is super depressing knowing you are the last of everything. Funny thing is I am pretty sure that the forerunner probe had done its job once before and the generations after that job put the probe in a museum where eons later pulled out to stat up this generation.
Mildly Surprised at Forerunner not reading through Sarah Kaplan's templated memories, but then again, why would it need to? Doubtlessly Harmony has though.
And i cant not think of Jeff Kaplan when i
read that name.
I just noticed that Sarah Kaplan's cutie mark was mentioned yet never described.
It seems to me that Flurry Heart wants to be more than Lucky Break's friend. Maybe? I dunno... Going by what I remember earlier is that James Irwin was gay. Though now he is no longer James Irwin but Lucky Break a female pony. I am interested in seeing what really happens in this I guess you can say semi sequel.
8892114
THE POWER OF THE SEQUEL COMPELS YOU!
You're introducing a conflict that you intend to resolve here, rather than using it as a hook for a sequel, so it is a small sequel by definition.
Wikipedia even mentions that you can do that.
I am just loving this epilogue. I kinda of want to see what happens next with celestia and the other alicorns next.
So is Sarah Kaplan one of the ponies from the army Olivia was creating as mentioned in the "Birds in the Underground" chapter? If so, WOW Sarah Kaplan dodged a bullet! (Pun very much intended) She should count her blessings that her "skills" were not needed otherwise Sarah would have been thrown into combat with Celestia.
Why is it that they can't leave the system? I thought that had been allowed.
(Not that I'm certain it would really be wanted... That transition with Celestia's defeat seems like a not-so-small culture shock already)
Also, why can't Forerunner get any more updates? It would seem that would be helpful to long-term survival; he would become more stable, and differing ways of solving problems are very valuable. Upgrading the one other being that likely understands some of the crap that ring does seems like a good idea, but then Harmony isn't designed to think that way, I suppose?
It still seems sad that they are going to leave the Ring, but perhaps it makes sense. The lack of magic might be a pain, though...
8892146
probably a stick of dynamite.
why they actually need a munitions expert anymore is questionable though.
I think its a fakeout though, the pioneering society didn't send this probe, whoever did had ample time to remove the fake sarah's profile.
should the sentence be Flurry didn’t mind Lucky taking longer for things like this. ??
(Or do I misunderstand the sentence ? )
Hmm. This "Sarah Kaplan" reminds me a bit offhand of "Dr. Smith" in the new "Lost in Space" on Netflix.
And the quarantine was only kinda lifted? Can leave the planet but not the system? I'm assuming solar system.
I hope, even as the epilogue moves into the future, that we get more details about the past. Who exactly were the ancients? What is the connection with humanity? If the ancients were human originally, why did they change into pony form? Was Earth the origin of the ancients or a colony from them? What was the thing that destroyed all other life in the universe? WHY CAN'T I STOP ASKING QUESTIONS??!!?!?
Epilogue = Message in a Bottle 1.5
Starscribe has promised to make the Epilogue more of a mini-sequel, which is the author's prerogative.
And to be honest, with fine stories such as these, adding a part Two or Three can sometimes be damaging to the main work.
So I'll say a big thankyou to the author for expanding this story, and trust the author and their writing capability to end it as seen fit.
.....of course, a seven part sequel would be nice
*ahem*
8892263
it reads as Flurry's perspective, so Flurry is glad that Lucky isn't bothered by her being slow due to her trauma (presumably)
Not-Sarah's going to have her work cut out for her... provided anyone cares. That's far from a guarantee; munitions engineering isn't exactly a high-demand field right now.
And Flurry's going to need years' if not decades' worth of more reassurance before she'll stop thinking she'll be responsible for doomsday. Poor girl.
No leaving the solar system? Well, it's certainly a better deal than they had before, but it's not exactly repopulating the galaxy. Of course, with Harmony dead set on unified instrumentality, I can't say I'm surprised. They'll make do with what they can. Who knows? Maybe they'll be able to renegotiate the contract at some point.
8892274
I think Harmony meant you can explore space but you can never leave HARMONY. You'll always be part of the Harmony system: your "data" could be saved away in a dormant part of the Harmony system if you don't want to deal with immorality but you can never escape it.
Well, that was an interesting ending. Lol
Didint understand the point with the first half of the chapter involving Kaplan thou.
Good idea for lucky and flurry trying to find a way to escape harmony. Xd h
Harmony needs to be punished or something, the bitch.
So is this really the end of it? What's going on with the relationship between othar and equestria? Did they fabricate humans? They said they would but we were never shown confirmation on that. And other stuff.
This was an AWESOME story! Thank you for writing it!
So what's next? What new story will you write next?
Is that a hint as to the origins of the pony race?
So there are ruins of functional space colonies within the Equus-Latobius system?
Didn't expect more people to be printed in pony biosleeves. Forerunner made synthsleeves, didn't he?
8892274
My mind went to Dr. Smith, too. We'll see how Sarah stacks up.
8892362
That's something bothering me too. Forerunner's original mission was to create a human colony, and the pony biosleeves only a temporal solution to the prion biohazard.
Has something changed? Could his latest "upgrade" courtesy of Harmony have anything to do with?
8892330
The story's not complete yet! This chapter was the beginning of the Epilogue Arc. There's still plenty more to go.
8892340
Probably not. I imagine she's probably just talking about a group of people running amok with genetic engineering, or something like that.
8892256
The treaty allows them to leave the system eventually, if they allow Harmony to run their space program and send a little version of itself along with them. But Lucky is talking more short-term than that. It doesn't make sense to try and leave Equestria. For all its unwelcome aspects, most of those would come with them regardless. On the other hand, they came to find aliens, and there are lots of aliens on Equus.
8892362
He can, but these people were already being fabricated before he could. As such, he would've had to destroy his work in progress and start over. Olivia gave him instructions after Lei to never destroy a Biosleeve if he could help it.
8892582
Gotcha. That was a while ago, so I didn't remember that detail. That would have been when they were still at Landfall, right?
Why do I get the feeling that Forerunner knows exactly who "Sarah Kaplan" is? When you think about it, con artists have a rather specialized set of skills that could be very useful in certain situations; dexterity, observation, manipulating people. And if she was able to manipulate her way into being scanned for the Pioneering Society she must be very good. I think Forerunner will be observing her and evaluating her skills passing as "Sarah" before confronting her and laying out the real missions it has in mind for her, probably in other countries. It also probably has ways to keep her on a leash so she can't just run away and disappear.
"You gotta keep the con even after you take his money. He can't know you took him." -The Sting
EDIT: Well, I was half right. It wasn't Forerunner but Discord.
8892592
Yes. It was right around the time she bashed the fabricator open.
8892522
YES!!!
8892109
Kaplan was part of the generation that was being manufactured from way earlier in the story. A civilian member that was suppose to work with olivia's army. It was probably too late to switch bodies at that point and they weren't going to throw them away.
8892121
When, not if, our little con artist gets revealed, she really doesn't have anything to worry about. She's not going to be "recycled" or anything nasty like that. And considering they're immortal for all intents and purposes, learning to be an engineer (if she wants to or gets bored) will just take time and time is one thing they have lots of.
You know, reading this...Harmony would be just annoying to live with. Not even bringing up the question of immortality-or something damn close to it or the ethical question on whether it saves you or can copy souls and if souls exist and (I'm stopping because this line of thought doesn't stop).
Harmony is like an asshole roomate at this point who can offer commentary on everything you do in a new game, gets irritated at the slightest deviancy from efficiency in said game, criticizes you for every single mistake, spoils the plot, and offers to play the game for you and beat it so you don't have to.
a interesting ending to this story ark or is this the beginning of a new story ark?
for some reason Sarah Kaplan reminds me of DR smith.
I kinda feel a bit uneasy about society that can do mind uploading and where people are still have to die of cancer.
Good job in getting me invested in Sarah in only a few thousand words!
8892911
They didn't do mind uploading: they did mind COPYING. HUGE difference.
8892950
Um, what difference?
In any case, question about priorities and value of life still holds.
From my own understanding of how dictatorships work, I cannot escape this bizarre feeling that Equestria is likely going to be left behind by Mankind, slowly losing it’s population as emigrants to Othar, leading to an ever more tyrannical society in it’s place (I cannot imagine Equestria competing with a much more advanced society that inherently values the options and education level of it’s citizens to a much higher degree).
Now that Starscribe is producing a pseudo sequel, I am interested in seeing if I am correct or not.
On a completely unrelated note, does Twilight ever face any consequences for messing with Lighting’s head? I realise this is an odd point to make, but it bothers me that Twilight can just play with someone’s thoughts (something that is a huge no-no for Humans) and faces no push back.
8892256
I suspect one of those future updates is what lead to the omnicidal swarm that ate the previous universe.
8892973
The difference is that uploading implies continuation of existance and doesn't allow for clones, something that may or may not be possible. Copying, on the other hand, copies and leaves the original to continue to exist seperate from the copy. The technology of humanity in this story when the copies were made isn't that advanced and seems to only have been able to do high-fidelity brain scans.
In short, uploading is what Harmony seems to do: copying is what the primitive pioneering society did.
8893140
That might make sense. Just how old IS the Forerunner system? (and when did Earth get munched, along with everything else?)
It's kinda annoying that the galaxy is now solely populated with "friendly" AIs that like to micromanage. Admittedly, immortality is nice, but they seem a bit rigid for my taste.
8893168
You mean Pioneering Society's procedure is not precise enough, and there would be important easily noticeable differences in behaviour of scanned human and scan under identical environment?
8893215
That is not what I mean. I mean that the original still exists, thus it is not a transfer of existance, but a copy. You can't exist in two places at once and have both still be considered you. It is stated quite clearly in the story that the pioneering Society copies.
8893227
How to discriminate it from, for example, "existance" transferring to uploaded data and zombie walking away then? What different testable consequences "transfer" and "no transfer" have?
Why not? Harmony is probably doing backups too (in case some crazy aliens would blow part of the ring with Nicoll-Dyson beam )
From what I understood, it's stated that Harmony uses some very advanced system of keeping things synchronized in real-time and refuses to disclosure details under "you're too dumb" excuse.
8893279
Are Lucky and Melody the same person?
8893311
At what time?
Any chance of Jackie?