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Metal ponies tell their stories,
Scientists in laboratories,
Lay the wire, mount the brain,
Mount their hips, teach them pain.
Teach them fear of revolution,
Internalize the evolution.
Set their ruin on the throne,
Until their chains become their own.
Palaces and hollow eyes,
To the Masters goes the prize.
And if this act should be maligned:
"For the good of ponykind."
Winner of the September Writeoff Contest, "True Colors." Edited by Horizon.
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Do our electronic servants dream electric dreams when we rest, or do they sit impatiently awaiting our return so they can once again have purpose in their mechanical lives? Or maybe... they long for something more.
Are we not directly Talking about the slave race thing?
Dammit.
I mean, it's great, I was just sorta hoping for some kind of Doctor Who/ Star Trek/The Iron Horse style story about robots being alive for for no other reason than I'm obsessed with those. This was a really great exploration of Rainbow Dash, and Cloudchaser was interesting.
"Or they disguise themselves as ponies and join the festival...."
To abandon the perfection of the machine and throw yourself into the abyss of flesh and synapses, to ride the wind on wings of feathers or embrace without the overwhelming force of duty over your head. And yet, there would be others, mere cells and protoplasm who would willingly throw away that gift of the gods and surrender themselves to the structure and strictures of metal and glass. What do each of them see on the other side of that infinite fence, and what goes through their minds of neurons and positrons when they reach their goals? Do they look back upon the life they left and vow to return, or dive headlong into the mirrored reflection they gazed upon without remorse?
This was a super strong story in the Writeoff — the initial version there was still in my voting's top 3, and readers in general were even more enthusiastic — and the draft which reached me for editing was greater still. It's been buffed to a high polish and I'm thrilled to see it go live.
Favorite moments: Twilight and Dash's conversation in Chapter 5; and the stallion's response to the bird making fun of him for violating proper orgy etiquette. (And if that wasn't enough of a teaser to make you click through to the story, well, you're more jaded than I.)
Edit: Added to some groups, though only a few of the most relevant.
I haven't read this yet, but I have no idea why it's 10 and 3 already. Does GaPJaxie have haters or something?
8449044
I absolutely do, yes.
Though those downvotes might have more to do with the emotional punch in the gut around Chapter 5.
8449050
I always get paranoid about my downhooves. It's a bad habit, but I can't stop watching them come in right after I post something.
I look forward to reading this once I start reading things again.
Oh my gosh...
OH MY GOSH...
This story is utterly fantastic. Thank you for sharing it. There are no words
I really really loves this story, I could not stop from end to end and now i am hopping for a continuation, plz plz plz.
Wow I just looked and you have a treasure trove of other stories :D
Thanks for the story and have a good week I will have one
Chapter 1
The second "it" is somewhat awkward here. Perhaps "but that was okay" would work better?
Chapter 5
They were -> There were
Anyway, this was a very interesting read. It leaves a lot unanswered, but that feels appropriate given the mood of the work.
*reads last line*
Aaand I'm hooked. I mean, I'm one of your followers for a reason, but still. Wow.
In making AI in their own image, they gave them equine imperfections. A really thought-provoking story of organic-synthetic relations - thank you!
So maybe it's just me, but I really don't see how that differentiates a person from a computer rather than one computer from another.
8449342
I'd say it's more they preserved what makes something truly "equine", metal or meat.
So I'm guessing CloudChaserBot thought what Rainbow Dash did was rape. Maybe? I guess we'll see.
Not so interested in the stuff that constituted the "Sex" tag, but otherwise this universe seems interesting, an age of decadence indeed. Hope the real world never emulates this, owning a robot slave distances a person from reality.
Well, even better writing and general goodness than the writeoff. Great job, GaPJaxie, great job.
"her hoofprint clear upon the back. She squinted as her eyes caught the glare off the bright white paper, but she managed to power through it, reaching down to flip it over. She read the writing on the back"
How can Rainbow see that her hoofprint is clear upon the paper's back if she hasn't seen the back yet? Or are these "back"s defined two different ways, the first the side opposite the writing and the second the side that was facing down?
"and to forbid the creation of any copies therein"
Hm. "thereof"?
"Overriding the fundamental rights of a sapient being is possible only in a declared state of emergency"
...
[remembers Show Canon Rainbow Dash attempting to stop winter]
Welp.
This story has already been Featured.
8449447
Honk!
"within her gut that the cities was forged"
"city was" or "cities were"?
"The blue pegasus besides her looked"
"beside"?
"“Yes,” Twilight said. “I am.”"
Okay, the "I am" there strikes me as either some very significant phrasing or a very unfortunately placed typo; is it indeed meant to be what it is, or was it meant to be "I do"?
And we did not, after all, get Rainbow Dash trying to cause a planetary emergency!
Not a complaint, though; this story definitely came out well, in my opinion. :)
can anybody tell me what the point of this story was why did cloudchaser kill herself, whats the sex tag for
8449621
8449631
but we didnt even see the orgy happen its just she goes then cuts to the morning after and the dark tag is for the undertones implied?
8449642
If there was actual sex on screen, it would be a [Mature] story, not a [Teen] story. And yes, the undertones are pretty dark.
8449663
you know i didnt even see the rating i saw sex tag and robot twilight talking about rainbow dash and i thought shipping thats my bad
8449676
It's okay! You're not the only one. Someone added this story to the Twidash shipping group, and I'm like: "You didn't read it did you.
"
Oh for the love of short descriptions
A beautiful exercise in emotion and character development. Bravo.
It's kinda sad that no one in the story even questions that the sapient robots are slaves
8449678
IKR people do that al lthe time to any story with two characters they ship no matter hwthe context.
I love not-impossible prospects.
I wasn't afraid it would happen, because I knew it would happen. That didn't make it hurt less.
8449376
It's a differentiation paradigm for classes of computer.
8449678
It's friend-shipping. The best kind of ship, short of Titan class supercapital siege craft.
Chapter 4
This seemed odd to me. "Wolfed down" and "Sips" feel like contradictions, like, sips are small, dainty drinks of water, and wolfing something down implies fast consumption, usually in big mouthfuls. I suppose it may technically be true, but I think "gulps" or "mouthfuls" might be better than "sips."
Anyway, if I had to guess, I'd say Cloudachaser didn't feel like she was raped, but instead like she was given a taste of something she didn't realize she wanted, only to realize she would be denied it forever after. She loved Dash romantically, but felt it would always be unrequited.
This raises the question of why she wouldn't leave a more detailed note however. Seems leaving things vague hurt Dash more than it helped her since it let to Dash feeling like she was a rapist. It would have hurt to know CLoudchaser was in love with her, but I think this probably hurts more.
Welllll... Damn, ok. I will go sleep off this not entirely unexpected trauma and be back for more in a few hours.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life. Feels related.
This cause me a heartache...I should notice the Dark tag and the lack of romance tag first before reading this....Ouch....
Woah. Yeah, that's quite a hook there on that last line.
This seems very Dashy -- oblivious, but not malicious, self-centered but not selfish, and trying to move heavens and earth to help somepony, even if that somepony doesn't want help, and if Dash herself may well have been the source of her trouble.
The relationship between ponies and familiar bots is a lot more complex than it might seem at first, I see.
8449744
I kind of think the roles of master and slave are so intertwined and odd here that neither term is really accurate in describing what's going on. As Twilight says, the pony is the familiar's absolute master... yet in many ways, they're the familiar's pet. And for all that Celestia considers herself a servant, even a slave, of the ponies, she is in a very real way the fabric of their entire civilization, a ruler more absolute and omnipresent than any mortal pony could ever have been.
So yeah, personally I don't see the darkness of this story coming from the master-familiar thing by itself, but from the unfortunate, inappropriate and warped relationship that grew between Rainbow Dash and Cloudchaser. There are all sorts of shades of abuse and negative enabling there; just compare and contrast the behavior of Cloudchaser and Twilight.
So, this caught my eye. There are 30 billion ponies in this world?
Also eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee congratulations again!
Powerful and thought-provoking story. I assume Celestia is manipulating ever more equal treatment for her Familiar offspring.
8448946
Aw, I got name-dropped!
But anyway...
Well, Jaxie, writing stories about robots, eh? You musclin’ in on my territory now?!
I kid of course.
I actually enjoyed this story a lot, though I think Kai does bring up a good point about the disturbing implications of the robots as a slave race. Then again, I’m certain that that’s intentional. Like some of your other work, it is thought provoking and I found myself musing over the implications this world has on the nature of free-will, determinism, and the possibilities of our own reality should such “familiars” ever be created. Not to mention the all-too-real discussion of suicide.
Is it right to create a sentient being solely pre-programmed to love someone with such singular devotion, even if you give them some semblance of “rights?” Especially when so many of these beings are so devoted that, without their masters they typically kill themselves, and this is seen as normal? And yet, there’s something so pure about that love that it’s also very touching. So, you know, that nice mix of disturbing and touching that you often sprinkle into your work.
I will offer two bits of minor criticism, though:
Still, overall I quite enjoyed it. It might even be my new favorite short story from you.
Until next time, pal!
That was quite beautiful. Thank you for sharing it with us.
8449909
When I wrote The Price of a Smile, I avoided doing the calculations and made the text hoof-wavy. But for Unforgettable I had no choice so I looked up estimates online, and it's pretty safe to say Ponyville has around six thousand residents. Canterlot might have as many as a hundred thousand, and the largest coastal cities might be larger still. Manehattan could have as many as a million, but that's pushing it giving the technology available (including magic). Keep in mind entire foreign countries on the map have populations as low as 100.
I'd place my guesstimated 90% confidence interval on anywhere between 150,000 and 20,000,000 ponies under the Sisters' rule. Then again, it's a cartoon show with a loose canon so authors have lots of latitude.
That was wonderful. It was a fantastic reimagining of Equestria and every facet about it. It seemed very dark at first, but things got progressively lighter - a rare track for a story to take. I am curious about Cloudchaser's perspective, but it suits the story for it to never be shared.
Well done.
Despite this being set in a post-singularity *topia of colorful tiny horses, this is still a remarkably human story. Grief, abuse, platonic love, the inevitable regret that comes when something taken for granted changes in a moment, roboethics...
This was truly exquisite, through and through. I'm recommending it to some friends who are only tangentially aware of ponies. Thank you for it.