Hunt the leg. 59%
Twilight wasn’t so sure this was a good idea. Even with the knowledge that Apple bloom stopped being contagious once the material of her transformation was gone, even with their full-body biohazard suits, she still had the distinct impression that they were wandering into something she didn’t understand and would do better to avoid.
What does a strange machine meant to convert entire people into robotic substitutes of themselves do when the process is interrupted early?
Then again, if creating this thing had been the price of saving Applejack, she was willing to pay it.
“I don’t think we’re going to have to be too violent,” Pinkie said. She had a net slung over one shoulder. Twilight wasn’t so sure about that, so she had a proper rifle. “But I guess it’s good one of us has something, just to be safe.”
“You can tell me what you’ve seen on the way,” Twilight muttered, her voice low over their private channel. It wasn’t like the others couldn’t swap around until they found it—but so far she hadn’t heard any other voices. If Fluttershy or Applejack were upset with what they were doing, they were keeping quiet about it.
They walked for a while, and Pinkie spoke as thy traveled. In a near straight line towards the boundary of the green island, where safety ended and the ruined city the size of a planet loomed large on the horizon.
“So I’ve been the pony making deliveries—everypony was more important than me, since we haven’t needed my mining much. And… I don’t blame you for not trusting me with anything really important, after… waking up. Anyway, I was delivering things for Apple Bloom, and I noticed something creepin’ around. I think it had some wire, or maybe a sofa…”
Twilight’s eyebrows went up behind the plastic shield. “You’re not sure?”
“It was a small sofa! Anyway, I hadn’t seen any animals care about cables or furniture before, so I decided to investigate. Tracked it all the way out. You can see the border there.”
She could. Twilight didn’t know any better than the other ponies what kept their part of the world green and the rest lifeless. There was a perfectly straight line, beyond which no seeds germinated, and no grass spread. She could’ve cut it with a razor if she wanted. But it wasn’t an energy field, because ponies could cross it without difficulty. So could drones, which they’d used to make sure of that fact first.
Twilight had not needed to set any rules to keep her crew inside—the desolate wasteland just beyond the invisible line was enough that nopony wanted to spend too much time there.
Pinkie slowed, lowering her voice conspiratorially as they got close. Even though they were wearing huge suits with loud ventilators on the back. “I followed it to an opening in the rock just up ahead, and that’s where I stopped. I’m pretty good at following things, but whatever’s down there… it looked dark, and I wasn’t that brave, so I came back.”
“You did the right thing asking for reinforcements,” Twilight said through gritted teeth. “I wish the rest of our crew was that considerate.”
Pinkie shrugged. “Everypony’s upset after hearing about Equestria. Apple Bloom made us scared. Even worse than hearing our trip took a lot longer than it should have. Which was too bad, because before that seeing Apple Bloom was a good thing. It meant that maybe all the ponies we love weren’t gone. Anyway, here we are! See that hole?”
She nodded, slowing to a stop. It was about a hundred meters past the edge of life, a crevasse that looked remarkably flat along one side. More like a service shaft that had been gradually weathered down. Twilight checked her back for her equipment—she had a climbing harness, though that was mostly by precaution. Pinkie had one too, and she would actually be using it.
“And how did you know that we wouldn’t need weapons?”
“Just a feeling,” Pinkie said. “You shouldn’t argue. It’s better just to trust me.”
She didn’t argue, though she didn’t agree. Back in Equestria, Twilight had reluctantly come to accept Pinkie’s impressions. But these days, her friend’s instincts were… warped. Like her own.
Twilight reluctantly let her mind relax, feeling some of Pinkie’s thoughts drift towards her. She was perhaps the easiest of all her friends to be near—instead of a mess of contradictions and wild thoughts, Pinkie was exactly what she appeared. Applejack was honest with her words, but Pinkie was honest with herself.
Together they crept down into the gloom, down a path marked by bits of broken stone.
Twilight’s initial suspicions were confirmed, as the cave quickly gave way to regular tunnels, like the ones she and applejack had traversed. And after only a very short distance, there was signs of habitation. Dust swept away, an orderly arrangement of metallic spare parts. She nearly squealed in surprise when they passed a fallen pony toolkit, one with Equinox markings.
Light shone from the space beyond, giving Twilight a good view inside.
It was a makeshift workshop, or armory, built into the hollowed-out shell of alien ruins. Part of these clearly worked, and some of the machines were humming.
A figure moved in the gloom, much larger than a leg. It walked on two legs, with two sets of arms exactly like the body Node had used. Only this one was much smaller, more skeletal and unfinished.
As Twilight watched, a creature a little bigger than a rabbit slunk past it, skittering on six limbs of its own—metallic, like itself, without a skin. It offered a stolen welding torch, and the thing took it in its grippers.
Pinkie looked sidelong at her, a grin on her face. Twilight glanced past her, and realized she had a clear shot with her rifle. They hadn’t been seen—they would never see it coming.
1. Take the shot. They’re stealing things, they’re a threat. End it.
2. Make contact. Maybe a survivor? Node might not be open with us, maybe this alien will be better.
3. Retreat before being seen, do safer things until the rest of the crew returns. We should do something about this, but not without Rainbow for backup.
4. Pinkie suggests that it looks like the machines it is using are running low on power. Bringing a fresh energy matrix as a peace offering might be better than just saying hello. They’re also expensive and difficult to replace, however.
(Certainty 230 required)
Tough choice. Another living being could indeed yield valuable information, but there's no guarantee that it is friendly. I think making any sort of contact now with just the two of them there would be too risky, and this is definitely a development that rest of the crew need to be made aware of. Option 3 it is.
Pinkie's instincts being warped, yeah, guys listen, here's why that probably is:
On Starscribe's blogposts is a character sheet of everyone, including the Magic they have. Twilight has a bunch of stuff like Matter, Teleportation etc. Most tellingly, Twilight also has "HUNGER: 1 - The hunger of the void has seen her face".
Pinkie, however, has a HUNGER magic of three. "The hunger of the void knows her name". This might not be good. And it might also spell bad things for Sunset when and if she wakes up.
The last machine we saw was the giant death worm. I vote shoot to kill.
Can we have Pinkie make contact while Twilight hides and provide overwatch?
Always a confidence booster. Though maybe it's just referring to the narrow majority that went for this option.
See, I did trust her right up until she phrased it like that.
In any case, meeting peacefully seems like a good option, but it seems best to take it slow and not offer any expensive gifts before we figure out if we're ready for that kind of commitment.
Please for the love let Pinkie be right....! I really want Pinkie's value to be reestablished, for her Pinkie Sense to be useful. I'm voting for a peace offering and hoping dearly that it doesn't cause the rug to get yanked out from under us AGAIN.
Option 1. This thing is stealing our stuff, might as well shoot the thing dead before it can cause any more damage
Retreat for now. It doesn't seem hostile, but I don't think making contact right now is a good idea.
And neither is giving it an expensive resource for no reason, majority of voters
Ironic.
Option 3 please.
I'm not convinced the energy matrix is a good idea. Twilight isn't convinced the energy matrix is a good idea. Most commenters aren't convinced the energy matrix is a good idea.
On the other hoof, Pinkie hasn't steered us wrong yet. And establishing friendship with strange new worlds and civilizations is literally what they're here to do.
Maybe a fainting couch?
Let's keep rolling the Pinkie dice. 4.
Confound these ponies and their desire to make friends. A welcome to the neighbourhood gift is exactly the thing ponies (and Pinkie in particular) would do.
Nothing against this chapter in particular, but this is where my interest has withered away too much. This kind of narrative is what I'd want to play in a game and seeing the last few chapter notifications arrive in my inbox felt too much like a chore.
I've always been more of a Niven, Asimov, or McCaffrey kind of guy and, without a gameplay side to make up for it, the inherent lack fine-tuned narrative that an RNG and voting bring have been making this story feel like a flop to me. (Initially, the mystery held my interest but, ever since about when they landed on the planet, it's started to feel more and more like a collection of set pieces, yanking in random directions rather than working together to build a unified experience, and the only thing that can be reliably anticipated is that, because "truth is stranger than fiction" and the RNG appears to be fair, the story will feel pointlessly cruel to the characters.)
It also doesn't help that the "explorers on an alien world", "you were asleep longer than you thought", and "creeping horror that wants to consume/destroy all life" aspects make it come across to me as a poor attempt to rehash what worked well for you in Message in a Bottle.
I've moved it to the "Tracking, but no e-mail notifications" folder for stories where I'm theoretically supposed to come back to them but never seem to get around to it.
Hmmm, the machine demonstrates many qualities Node does. Perhaps they should bring Node to assist negotiation?
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It's not that Pinkie's mind is that calm and orderly, it's merely that the true thoughts of The Pink One are so far beyond even Twiight's ability to understand it simply seems that way to her limited perceptions.
Option 1, shoot the bugger
I'm voting to try and make friends, Option 4. Lord knows that we already have a lot of potential enemies, and incredibly few allies. Any chance to gain another ally, or to at least keep a potential enemy neutral, should be taken. And why bother having Pinkie's Insight if you're never going to trust it?
Plus, it's in the spirit of the mission.
EDIT: "Something is hiding below the city..."
Well that's fucking ominous.
I say we keep going with the pink, if something gos terribly wrong and they want to eat someone, offer pinkie
Well, Pinkie came through again, even though I doubted it as the best action last time... but right now is NOT the time for contact. Get backup first, THEN try communicating. Option 3.
What does "fallen" mean in this context?
As for the vote: I am not convinced that giving away extremely valuable energy sources to random thieves is a great idea, but I AM convinced that "shoot on sight" is not how I want this story to go. The fact that it's massively out of character for Twilight is also a factor in my judgement that this is a bad idea.
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Please note that Pinkie's contribution is not presented as "we should totally give then our energon cube" but rather "it looks like their batteries are low".
I'm all about contacting and trying to befriends aliens, but let's not give them expensive equipment just because and even before we even talk to them. So option 2 pretty please.
Trust the ponk!
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I like this idea. I wish it had been included as a secret option or in the Poll.
Kind of sounds like the leg become a Caterpillar thing and is trying to make itself a bigger body. I wonder if it has a small Applejack head up front of it?
Yeah, I'm going to go with the power matrix option.
If they can get a bit of trust in with this mechanical being, it might make figuring out how it thinks all the more easier and if it is a threat.
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If the Pinkie option gets chosen I think I'll include that.
Gear can be replaced. People and allies can't. I'll pay if it means we seal the deal.
There's 2 ways to proceed:
1. We know that Pinkie is supposed to be insightful, with good intuition. By that process, just about anything she suggests is more likely than not to be good, and should be considered the universe trying to give us a bit of help. That says "Go for her".
2. Or, we could look at the character sheets. Pinkie's has more Zalgo text and a higher value, so that's as omnimus as a humming blaster.
3. Or, we could look at the discord chat, and notice that there are some dice rolls in there that have not come out in the story so far, which would give us a really big hint.
I'm going with the "Lets not meta-game" approach, and saying "Trust the intuition of the pink demon that no one understands".
You have to trust the Pink Pony. If you don't, bad things happen.
The only surprise for me is she didn't pick an simple butterfly catcher.
My choice would be to politely say Hello.
But it seems the majority has other ideas.
I shall trust the Pink one in this, all hail Pinkie sense, so 4.
It’s always best to be armed when hunting a leg.