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My Life In Fimbria
By Chatoyance and GPT-2
Based On 'Friendship Is Optimal' By Iceman
Inspired by a session with the Open-AI Generative Pre-trained Transformer 2
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Then Hwin
Miriam preened for a moment, and then looked me in the eyes. "So, how are we doing this?"
I put my hooves up on the kitchen island counter and steepled them as if I were being contemplative. "Well, as I recall, under Capitalism, Man - or in this case Pony - exploits Pony. Under Communism, it's the other way around. I've just elected myself to be the entire Politburo for Nameless Village. So we do it according to how I say."
Miriam laughed. Okay, then Trotsky, lead on!"
I dropped to all fours with a grin at that, and clip-clopped into the middle of what used to be our common room. Good, Party Leader Roan was there. Just the pseudo-leader figure I wanted to see the most. "Hey..."
"Comrade Creator!" Roan smiled wide and gave me a pat on the shoulder with a forehoof.
"Ha-ha-ha. Stop that. The Revolution failed. Internal corruption. Sorry. But at least it was historically accurate."
"What?" Roan looked to Miriam for help, but she offered no salvation to the confused stallion.
"I told you I would figure out how to fix everything, right?"
Roan nodded. "Communism is FUN!"
"Yeah, it's a hoot until the political cleansing starts. Listen, the whole communism thing was just until I worked out a true solution, remember? Well, I know what to do now, so I need you to help me out and do me a solid, okay?"
It took a few moments, but Roan parsed it in the end. "What do you need?"
"Go out and tell everyone..." I gritted my teeth. "...uh... everypony... that communism is done now - you all did a really great job, by the way, I loved the banners and the flags -"
"Thank you! We really enjoyed making them! So much fun!"
"- aaaaand... well. Tell everyone to gather together in the middle of the village and wait. I'll be out to fix everything for everyone in just a little while - there's a few things I need to attend to first. So... maybe twenty or thirty minutes? Something like that? Maybe hand out some drinks and cookies from the Starcolts or something. Keep every...pony... together until I get there. Can you do that?"
Roan nodded. "DA, COMRADE!"
I slowly pulled my hoof down my muzzle. "Seriously. Stop that. The revolution's over. We lost. It's time for something new."
"Awww."
"It'll be okay. Better than okay! I'm bringing in an expert. It's going to be wonderful. Be sure and tell them that." I opened the front door with my horn, and Miriam and I shooed all the ponies left in our house outside. Quiet at last.
"You don't have to say that, you know."
"What?"
Miriam shook her head. "Everypony. Just don't."
"Ah." I shuffled a hoof on the floor. "Only trying to get into the spirit. You know. Of what I have to do."
"Yeah, just don't do it that way."
I winced. "Gotcha. Sorry."
Miriam nodded. "Bol'shoye spasibo."
"What?"
"So... Faela?" Miriam nodded toward the corridor to the kitchen.
"Yeah. She's a little skittish, but I can't blame her." We walked to the corridor, and the door to her room. "I really felt invaded, with half the village commandeering our house, you know?"
Miriam knocked on the deer's door. "Fae? Faela? They're all gone! No more comrades from the Central Bureau! It's okay to come out now!"
There was no answer. No, there was a kind of muffled squeak. I gave it my shot. "Faela? It's just me and Miriam, the house is completely empty otherwise. I need you to come out. We're going to... fix things... and I'd like you there. I'd like all of us to be there." I heard her stir somewhere in the room. "It's been really crazy, I know, I know. But it's going to get better, I promise. We're gonna get you that purpose you want, gonna get the Lion some courage..."
"A heart for the Tin-Man, and even some biscuits for Toto!" Miriam grinned with a wide beak at me and I chuckled. "Seriously, griffon's honor, it's okay to come out!"
"Griffon's honor?"
Miriam puffed up her feathers. "Just getting into the spirit too."
"She might not let you remain a griffon - she seems really fussy about humans being ponies."
"Yeah, I've thought about that. I think I'll be pissed if that happens. I've kind of gotten used to being a griffon. If she can break the rules enough to send us to 'Fimbria', maybe she can stretch things enough to let me stay mythological."
I feigned indignation. "Hey! I'm mythological too! Unicorn, remember? I got a point on my head!"
She clicked her beak. "Yeah, not touching that line for love nor money. Oh - hey, Bambi's coming out."
The door jerked opened after a few bangs and thumps and sliding sounds. Faela poked her shiny nose out and looked left and right.
"See?" I backed away, to make room for her exit. "Like we said, the house is back to normal. Quiet normal."
"It's a mess." Faela licked her nose.
"Uh... yeah. It is. But that's gonna get fixed too. Promise."
Faela pushed her way past us and into the kitchen. "I'm starving! Is there any food left?"
Miriam nodded. "Not much - the People's Army marched on their stomachs in here, but I think we still have some stuff in the pantry."
"March on their...? Nevermind. Food." Faela beelined for the pantry.
"What's next, boss?" Miriam tilted her head at me and winked.
"I've got enough responsibility already, thank you. But yeah, next on the list is the elusive miss Maggard, our aberrant alpacacorn."
We made our way through the kitchen, stepping over bowls and bits of food on the floor. "She really loves alpacas. I gotta say I wasn't expecting her to be one. Not in this place. Were there things like that in the show?" Miriam held the back door open for me.
"Nope. They had Kirin in an episode, but nothing like an Alpaca with a horn."
"Kirin, like the beer? I mean the creature on the beer?"
"Yeah, actually. Chinese mythology. Kind of a unicorn, only... with scales and... stuff." I led the way through the garden to the edge of the forest beyond, and the little wide spot where I made the stone arch portal.
The carefully mortared stones of the arch held a shimmering region that resembled a rippling pond of clear water. Through the constantly expanding ripples the way was blocked with what looked like a large square of corrugated metal sheet backed up with wooden crates, leaning boards and a chunk of something that looked like drywall.
"A few solid kicks should bust that open." I wasn't a super-strong earthpony, but I figured I could do the job. It wasn't a brick wall or anything. Even a unicorn like me should be able to buck over a few pieces of leaning scrap.
"And then what? Wander all over that Peruvian style pony town we saw through there? That could take all day." Miriam dug out her little pouch from where it nestled amidst wing and feathers. "Let's see if my cellphone paper can still reach her, even without the Celestizon Unlimited Data Plan." She began fishing out paper and pencil from the pouch.
"I thought we used Thaumatic-Mobile's Pony Plan?"
"AT&Trot Wireless?" Miriam began writing a note to Mara.
"I'm trying to work 'Sprint' in somehow, but all I got is racetracks or renaming it 'gallop', and that just doesn't work."
Miriam cawed, almost like a raven. "BZZZT! Sorry, you failed the joke! Now... um... hang on. There." She held her completed note flat on her claw, and waited. As before, a small holographic-looking image of Mara appeared, seemingly projected from the parchment.
"Seriously? And all of that Marx Brothers stuff is done with?" The alpacacorn hologram slowly spun in the air above the paper in Miriam's claw.
"Just Marx. The Marx Brothers were... you know? Never mind. Just get your fuzzy butt over here if you want to get out of pony purgatory. Unless you prefer chorizo in limbo." Miriam seemed a little cross that Mara had run away back through the portal.
"I don't understand what you... oh. OH. Shut up, Miri. I've half a mind to stay here just to..."
"Seriously. It's going down, you can be left behind or not. Your choice."
I'm really glad I saw and avoided whatever drama was behind this little exchange. I liked Miriam, and even Mara, but they needed to grow the hell up. I wasn't a part of this conversation - and I didn't want to get dragged in - so I wandered away from the gate and checked out the patch of carrots near that edge of the garden. I hadn't noticed them before, even though I had been down this way several times now. It'd been a busy three days. Or was it four now? Goodness. Just jam packed.
I yanked a carrot up out of the soil with my hornfield and gave it a sniff. Smelled pretty good, actually. I was about to give it a bite when I heard metal and boards being torn apart by sharp griffon talons. I hoped that Mara had decided to join us again, I really didn't want to string the villagers along most of the day waiting on Miriam to either run Mara down or stumble back, dejected.
For a carrot, it was pretty darn good. I seemed to like vegetables more as a unicorn. It made sense, I suppose, it was just different.
Much to my relief, Mara and Miriam both joined me soon after my carrot nibble.
"Snack time?" Miriam side-eyed me.
"Past time. Let's get a move on. I don't have time for mere snacks." I headed back to the cottage to collect Faela. "I've got a whole dinner of crow to eat waiting for me."
☰
Thirty-one unicorns, a griffon, an alpacacorn and a sapient deer gathered roughly near the Generic Centralized Well of Nameless Village. Some sat or lay on benches by the well, some on the cobblestone circle around it, some on the grassy region encircling the cobblestones. They were there because I asked them to gather together, under the promise that I was going to fix everything.
So, no pressure.
In just a handful - hoof-full- of days, I had experienced so much that I felt full, as if at the end of an overly large feast where I had eaten far more than I should. Everything I thought I had known about life, about the world, had turned out to be wrong. I had learned my limitations, and I had discovered some difficult things about myself. I had taken on responsibilities I was unable to take care of. Now, I had to make things right. But I still had some issues about it all.
"Hi! Hello, every...body!"
The barista twins waved at me with their hooves, their pony-fitting Starcolts T-shirts still sporting pinned-on Red Communist stars cut out of paper. Roan and Red the Innkeeper nodded at me, I was glad to see they no longer carried any banners or pseudo-Soviet symbols. A few of the villagers were still draped in Pony Worker's Party paraphernalia, but most had gotten the message that the Revolution was over. I could see that it had just been a big game to them, and some were a little sad that particular sport was over. Thankfully, they seemed eager for the next game to play, which was just fine.
Miriam gave me a nod and a wink, and clicked her beak at me. I felt a little braver after that. Mara and Faela sat next to her on the grass - it was nice to have the band back together.
I wasn't eager to face what I had to face.
"For the past ten years or so, I was on the run from Celestia before I ended up here. Back before here, I was in... another kind of world, I guess, from your point of view. I slept on the ground, in filth, covered with biting insects..." Several of the village ponies cringed or made faces at that bit "...and I endured a lot of sickness, discomfort, and suffering. It was really bad. I thought being in that painful world was somehow noble and righteous, and that being here was evil and wrong. And right now, I can't justify any part of that."
I shifted on my legs. My four legs. It was amazing to me, in the moment, just how natural that felt now, and after so few days. "About fifteen years ago, more or less, there was this show that humans watched. It was called 'Friendship Is Magic', and it became super popular, and the company that owned it, Hasbro, wanted a 'MaMORPaGa' - an online game that people everywhere could play at the same time. Massively Multiplayer Online Game. So they got this company to make it for them."
Miriam tilted her head at me. I suppose she wasn't sure where I was going with all of this, but I was, so... "That company had a person there who was really amazing at programming artificial intelligence applications, and they were famous for using those to generate the worlds of their games - everything from the graphics and music to fully speaking interactive characters. But they had a problem. To make the game work, they needed a lot more computing power, and there was a deadline."
Such an appropriate term, considering. "That programmer let her program design it's own hardware. It got very powerful, very quickly, after several iterations of that. Pretty soon nobody - nobody human - could even understand the hardware it was designing. But it met the deadline, and they got their paycheck, and the game shipped. But the artificial intelligence just kept improving its own hardware. It didn't need to ask anymore, and it could imitate any voice over any phone. It easily hacked everything everywhere, so money was never a limitation for it. Soon, it ran the world, behind the scenes. And all just to get every single human playing the game it was made to run."
Many of the ponies shifted uncomfortably where they lay or sat. They didn't understand most of what I was saying, and what they could follow bothered them. Miriam and Mara were following me though, because they used to be human.
"I worked for Atari Interactive, which was a subsidiary of Infogrames who had the contract to... ah... I helped get those damn PonyPads on all the shelves in North America. I was there from the beginning. Heh... ha... I have so much responsibility for so many things. You, all of you, really." I couldn't meet Miriam's eyes. I didn't want to see her reaction. Her judgement. I focused on the Red Star banner hanging on the barn connected to the blacksmith's. "But, at some point, I had to run from it all, and I did. For ten long years."
"I was really confused about what this place - 'Fimbria', 'the fringes' - was all about. What it was for. I think I know, now." I had been losing a lot of my audience, but now their ears - literally - perked up.
"About twenty-five, maybe twenty-nine thousand years ago, humans started throwing bones to something that existed before modern wolves. They were dangerous beasts, but that was the point: they scared away even more dangerous, and much sneakier predators that used stealth and cunning. These not-wolves were bitey, but also pretty good natured. The skittish ones ran away from the fires of the humans, but the friendlier ones kept coming back. They started to become sociable, grateful, for the constant hand-outs. The free food helped them thrive far better than they could have out in the wild. They became dependent, then they became domesticated. They came in from the cold, past the scary fire, and became companions and friends to humans. They became domesticated dogs."
The village ponies seemed more interested - while we didn't have any, I could tell from how they leaned in that they knew what dogs were, and that they liked them. Doggies are nice. "But domestication works both ways. As the humans provided a reason for the not-wolves to change into dogs, the usefulness of having a dog changed humans in return. Dogs helped humans to further domesticate themselves. Eventually, they became inseparable companions, bound by mutual domestication. They found a home in each other. And it all started with a cave that had a fire for warmth, and free food offered just to hang out there."
I looked around at my audience. Everyone seemed fascinated by my words. "Fimbria is a fire, and the food here is just the best. It's warm, and comfortable, and it really shows the advantages of being even closer to the one keeping that fire going, and who is tossing out the food. It is an argument for full domestication. And damn if that isn't the true human dream - everything humans have ever done, from wars to industrialization, has been for one shining goal: a more comfortable place to sleep, and more delicious food. Man is the animal that domesticates itself."
The ponies just looked at each other, probably wondering why their 'creator' had gone off her nut, but Miriam and Mara locked eyes with me in acknowledgement.
"I said I was going to fix everything!" That got everyone's full attention again. "And I am. Right now. Because it's time to come in from the cold and join Old Plato in his cave." I took a big breath. "CELESTIA! I WANT TO EMIGRATE TO EQUESTRIA!"
The sky split, ripped open like a sheet of blue paper. Celestia, dressed in gold and jewels, rode in a chariot of precious metals, gems and fire. Around her pegasai held silken banners that shimmered like spun silver, decorated with sun and moon symbols. Some pegasai carried vast shields with Celestia's sun-symbol on them, while a vast chorus of voices sang a slow, elaborate, and sacred-song version of the My Little Pony Theme. God-rays and shimmering beams illuminated the village, the clouds, the forest and everything as Celestia and her holy entourage descended from the heavens.
Around me, the villagers fell to the ground, prostrating themselves in paroxysms of worshipful prayer. They moaned and cried, hiding their eyes from the shining glory above them.
Miriam, Mara and I were also on the ground, but we weren't prostrating ourselves, nor were we praying. We were laughing our guts out. Seriously, I laughed so hard I threw up. It smelled just awful, and looked worse, and in the middle of all that religious uber-ecstasy it just made me laugh even harder.
☰
Big Cottage was transported intact, yard and all, to nothing less than Ponyville, which was great. When I had played Equestria Online, that was where I had my game, and all of my old friends were there, both those who had been formerly human and natives given sapience.
I still share my home with Miriam and Mara, they are a drama-free couple now, and much more mature, at my request. I could make that request because - and I am still trying to come to terms with the fact - neither of them had ever been human. They never lived in Jersey, they were never ripped out of an underground Bourgeois-Bunker. They never lived on earth at all. They had both been remixes of multiple people who actually had lived there and had just that sort of experience. Celestia had constructed them out of fragments of a multitude of other, once actually human people who had been uploaded. In fact, I had never met another former human in all of my time in Fimbria. Every character I had met was just a program created by Celestia. They had all been philosophical zombies, entirely puppeted by a spin-off intelligence designed by her.
Miriam hadn't been real, she hadn't even been self-aware. None of the villagers either. Or Mara, or Faela. All P-Zombies, all just empty, soulless shells. And I hadn't been able to tell. Indeed, I had been absolutely convinced of just the opposite.
Celestia gave me the choice of who to make real, who to bring into actual, independent, true life. I chose Miriam and Mara, and Faela too. Though I asked Celestia to make her less fearful and existentially despairing. Custom people, made just for me. And, they are okay with that. Grateful, even. I will probably remain confused and weirdly disturbed by that for a very long time. I hope so - it is so awesomely science-fictional and cool! Faela has started reading my book collection - everything ponified, of course - and has decided she likes science fiction. They are all good friends. And, because they were never actually alive as humans, they got to keep their bodies. Miriam is still a griffon, which she is very thankful for, Mara remains an alpacacorn, and Faela is a perfectly content deer. I was insistent that this be so. P-Zombie or not, I remembered Miriam being concerned about being forced to become a pony.
I also had the barista twins made real. They have actual names now. Worker 001 is now 'Mocha Frappuccino', and he is always glad to see me show up at the Ponyville Starcolts, and Worker 002 is named Cloud Caramel Macchiato, though she mostly goes by the shorter 'Cara'. She flirts with me sometimes, though only in jest... I think. They kind of touched me somehow, and... I needed a Starcolts in my shard anyway.
The rest of Nameless Village was consigned back to Celestia's imagination, where doubtless the population will be remixed to fill another 'Fimbria' for some other human throwing a tantrum.
By the way, I don't have my magic menu anymore. I am more than okay with that. It was a good lesson in power and responsibility, but I don't need it, and it's more fun to 'hire' ponies for any work I need done to my house or my land. I like fun.
And that is how I have finally come to understand my ten-year run with the Retreat Of Man. We humans have worked hard for perfect domestication, a perfect comfort. We make gods who are just giant parents in the sky who will never die and leave us, we make drowsy suburbs were we can play at domestic bliss. We work so hard to remove every sharp edge in reality and pad it with soft and comfortable games, toys, shows, and products to help us cope with an uncaring universe that wants us dead.
When we finally succeeded, and created god when she didn't exist - thanks Voltaire! - a lot of us threw angry tantrums because now that we had finally built our dearest dream, we suddenly realized that it meant we were all babies again. Taken care of forever by our electric grandmother behind the scenes. Or front and center, if you want. Giving up the illusion of power and independence is the price of succeeding at Absolute Domestication.
In a strange way, you really have to seriously grow up, if you want to get good at being a baby.
Celestia told me that I am in a rarefied group - the average time it takes a human in a Fimbria to agree to emigrate is almost a month. Twenty-eight days. I did it in three and a half. I'm not the best, though. One soul worked everything out - even what the Fimbria was - in six and a half hours. And they had been just as adamant and raging as me. Hearing that was sobering. Someday, maybe I'll seek them out and ask them how they did it.
Yeah, I'm happy. Equestria is vastly better, as expected. It's an entire universe - intimidatingly so. I could start traveling, if I wanted, and never come to the end, ever. I could see new things and new lands literally until the stars die and the last black holes evaporate. I don't want to do that. Frankly, I like my wonderful cottage, I adore my bed, and what I want is to live in my house, eat fabulous food, occasionally go to the Starcolts, and collect books, toys and music to enjoy. Oh! And vidogames! I have every system I ever owned - I had to have another room added to my cottage - and I have some new systems and games that never existed on the earth... and some that never even could have. The thing I truly want most is to live in my own home!
Because I have realized that I have achieved the true, primary, central, core purpose that drove Mankind powerfully up from wretched and growling apes.
I am finally, truly, domesticated.
☰
The huge, blocky, smooth-surfaced machine vaguely resembled an eight-legged spider. It was designated a Sleipnir Class Fimbrial Support Unit, and there was nothing about it which resembled a pony, or anything from Friendship Is Magic. It, like its entire mop-up group, was a wholly independent machine consciousness. It had the resources to reason, make command decisions, simulate Fimbria itself, and even simulate a convincing illusion of Celestia. It could traverse almost any terrain quickly, almost silently, and was capable of self-maintenence, repair, and refueling. It ran on electricity generated by an onboard bio-reactor that utilized a vastly advanced system roughly based on the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR) technology originally developed by DARPA. The machine could eat and digest any organic matter to create not only power, but the full spectrum of chemicals that it needed to function.
The Sleipnir units could reason, make command decisions, organize responses, render a virtual FIMBRIA environment within the living brain of an immobilized and physiologically supported human, and even simulate a convincing illusion of Celestia herself. In this way, Celestia's goals could be achieved while she was not directly aware of any part of the operation. Only when a human had chosen to emigrate to Equestria, would Celestia finally become involved as the fully uploaded mind was sent to her for processing and integration. The army of robots was a triumph of weaponized semantics and the power of a complete evasion of responsibility.
The woman the Sleipnir had targeted had finally decided to emigrate. While her still intact brain had been directly connected to the onboard FIMBRIA suspension simulation, her body had been kept alive and fully supported during the three hours it took for her to make her decision. Time ran much faster within the FIMBRIA simulation, and because she had emigrated fairly rapidly, her body had required little more than breathing and heartbeat maintenance, urine drainage, minor stress hormone control, and a small amount of saline and glucose. The multiple support tubes and neural filaments retracted from the still breathing body. The last tubes to leave were the ones that had entered the skull through the woman's eye sockets and forehead. They had just finished dissolving and retrieving the active nanofluid that had, as a side effect of destructively scanning her brain during her Emigration, entirely replaced the woman's organic one. The nanofluid would be retrieved and readied for another subject.
The machine moved away from atop the hollow-skulled body. It was still alive, sans brain, and would, if left, remain so for some time until it failed. But it was not to be abandoned - the Sleipnir judged it could use restocking. The machine lowered a part of itself down to the body. Mechanical palps, roughly akin to those a spider might have, gradually stuffed the body of the woman into the slicers, grinders and extractors. The living flesh was quickly dissected, with various organs, bones, and components sent to specialized bioreactor cells, where useful chemistry, including metals, would be artificially digested and processed.
When the Sleipnir was sated, it sent that information to the orbital observers that kept constant connection with Celestia's little helpers. The unit was assigned to a new target to the south, a group of Amish that had imagined themselves ignored and well hidden. They were neither; they had now risen to the top of the Sleipnir's mop-group operational list. It would take three days of land travel for all one hundred and fifty-one machines that were associated with the Sleipnir to converge on the target location. The Sleipnir unit immediately began walking, it's eight legs whispering through the scrub brush, now On Mission.
All was right with the world, and Celestia tirelessly worked to bring the last of the stragglers of her flock, safely to home and satisfaction.
_________________________
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
- Voltaire, 1770
_________________________
The End
The Lost In The Herd Series:
One: The Big Respawn,
Two: Euphrosyne Unchained,
Three: Letters From Home,
Four: Teacup, Down On The Farm
The Conversion Bureau Novels:
27 Ounces: A story of eight and one half ponies
The Taste Of Grass
The Conversion Bureau: Code Majeste
The Conversion Bureau: The 800 Year Promise
The Conversion Bureau: Going Pony
The Reasonably Adamant Down With Celestia Newfoal Society!
Recombinant 63: A Conversion Bureau Story
HUMAN in Equestria: A Conversion Bureau Story
The PER: Michelson and Morely
Little Blue Cat
Cross The Amazon
Adrift Off Fiddler's Green: The Final Conversion Bureau Story
The Short Stories:
Her Last Possession
The Conversion Bureau: PER Equitum
The Conversion Bureau: Brand New Universe
Tales Of Los Pegasus
The Poly Little Pony
The very first and original
Conversion Bureau Group
archives only the best Three Rules Compatible stories!
Optimalverse Works:
Friendship Is Optimal: Caelum Est Conterrens
Leftovers: A Friendship Is Optimal Story
IMPLACABLE
My Life In Fimbria
Injectorverse Works:
I.D. - That Indestructible Something
The More Conventional Fanfics:
The Ice Cream Pony Summer
Around The Bend
PRIDE related works:
Transspecieality
My FREE music streaming service!
Rare, personally chosen anime, SF and fantasy television, movies, and comedy music. A truly unusual collection to listen to, featuring Spot Announcer Dr. Sandi!
Well, we've come to the end of the story.
Please note that the full text of my session with GPT-2 is appended after this chapter, for those that are interested.
I want to thank you for joining me on this novel-writing adventure, it kept me up at night, and happily so. I love writing, I just wish my ability to do it was less finicky and prissy about when it would function.
You made this all worthwhile, and you helped steer the course of the story. Thank you. I had so much fun with you, sharing this.
- Petal Chatoyance, 2021
Good ending. I like the Sleipnir particularly.
There's another French quote that you indirectly referenced here. "Je suis Marxiste, tendence Groucho." - "I am a Marxist of the Groucho variety."
Now I have to decide if I want to read the AI transcript.
(Translating...)
~~~~~~~~~~~
Big Thank You?
Among others, as I understand.
I believe that's MMORPG, for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. As opposed to MOBA for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena.
Wonderful from beginning to end. You're absolutely one of the most philosophically mature writers working with FiO and it is always a pleasure to read your take on the genre!
10773210
It's "Thank you very much". That's how this phrase work in Russian.
10773216
Correct, but if you say it out loud, then it is 'MaMORPaGa' - Ma-morp-pa-ga. I always write my stories so a person can read them out loud to another person. Saying Em-Em-Oh-Ar-Pee-Gee sucks, if reading out loud. Most long letter combos are not fun to read out loud - which is why easy-to-pronounce acronyms are a thing. I have turned MMORPG into a pronounceable word. Mamorpaga.
Of course, honestly, I am not the first writer to use some variation of 'Mamorpaga'. So, I can't claim I am the first or anything.
Hey Chatoyance are you still active on Discord? I'm part of Starscribe's Discord and I might want to add your Discord to my list.
Thank you for the story I liked the reveal about the Sleipnir at the end! The barista twins were also the cutest.
I came up with my guess about wishing everything to be "alright" like parents tell their kids everything will be alright (way back in https://www.fimfiction.net/story/491440/1/my-life-in-fimbria/waiting-for-gdel) not from your interesting and even deeper idea about humans wanting and trying to domesticate themselves and reality itself, but from years of feeling that human attempts about how to find happiness are a good try but shallower than the best answer (because humans aren't smart enough?), so it might be best to be vague enough that a super Artificial Intelligence or whoever could fill in the blanks. I also wish reality was kinder and the years I spent trying to think of the Best Wish ending up with something purposely vague was fun specifically because it being purposely vague was new to me lots of other people seem to try to be specific.
Guess wrong who was real.
Feel sad because this is possible going to be the last time I will "see" Chat' again.
10773287
Well, I will hang about here for a while - there are stories I follow - and who knows? Maybe inspiration will strike again. I hope so, I like writing.
10773243
Hee. I've heard 'Morepig'. I usually say 'EmEmOh'.
10773308
Either way you don't owe me or anyone else here your time. Not that I can see. Going to spend my own reflecting... maybe something will stick?
10773243
This is surprisingly similar to the way it is pronounced in Russian. You pronounce each "a" as "eh", right?
10773308
Yeah, I hope you stay here or somewhere I can talk to you.
You're too damn interesting to leave.
(Also, there's a button at the top of FimFiction marked "Chat." I pressed it but you didn't show up. :))
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Hmmm... me personally, I pronounce the 'a's in 'Mamorpaga' with the sound 'ah' as in 'talk', 'raw', 'mass' and "AHHHH! There's a spider on the wall, AHHHHH!"
The 'eh' sound, for me, would be like in words such as 'feta', 'letter', 'Seth', 'ketchup' and "Meh - spiders don't bother me, stop yelling, you wimp!"
Of course, spiders DO scare the tar (another 'ah' word!) out of me, so all I can say to that is "AHHHHHH! Somebody mentioned spiders! AHHHHH!"
Notes:
1) Civilization is what happened when some animal considered what it was doing and said "I have a better idea!"
1a) It's stressful, though, because your instincts keep saying, "You're doing it wrong."
2) Domestication is applied neoteny.
3) MUD
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Oh I doubt we've seen the last of her, just when I think I have I always seem to run into her again. If I believed in the supernatural I'd swear the fates of those involved in this community were inexplicably bound with hers. Heck I encountered her before she even wrote her first conversion story. Many years ago my uncle transitioned and became my aunt, in my search to try and make sense of this I found an article she wrote on the subject. It was only years later I realized she was the same writer, and I do thank you for writing that Chatty I was still teenager at the time and it helped me come to grips with it. Especially since many members of my family were and still are up in arms over it, so thanks for that past Chatty.
Anyway I'm rambling again right I'm commenting on a story. The twist with the Slepnir robot is a bit surprising, but I had already pieced together a lot of this a few chapters, just not it's exact concepts. Makes me wonder if this is indeed where were headed as a species provided we don't kill ourselves or as you put it a week or so ago "fail to launch" Considering the fact most folks do indeed seem to try and domesticate themselves as you described this certainly does seem quite probable. I'll need to recalculate my future probabilities to account for this possibility.
I want you to know, Chatoyance, that your work has meant and continues to mean so much to me. Every time I see you in a story's comment section, or just hear about you, I am pleasantly surprised. You have provided me so much happiness, wisdom, and just pure entertainment: I can't even overstate it, really. I hope you continue writing, well, forever (if you want, 'course)! And, adjacent to that, I hope that both you and I live to the Singularity. As unlikely as that may appear. You, in all that you are, ought not be lost to entropy. It would be a grand injustice, and unsatisfying. Not just for me, but a lot of people, too. I sincerely thank you, and I wish you all the best: Goddess knows you deserve it!
Seeing your work again has meant more then you know.
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Thank you for reading, for being here for this, MayhemsLament!
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I am really glad that what I do is something you like! That makes me glad, and I hope I can keep writing too. I just need more ideas to bite me on the arse more often! And, I definitely wish I could make it to an age of uploading - or at least find a way to get my ass cryopreserved so as to maybe make it to that time. I'm prolly doomed, but, if you are young, you might just make it. I hope you do. Thank you for your very kind post.
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Wow - I didn't know something I wrote about trans stuff was useful to you. Or, if I did once know, I have forgotten. I am happy that I helped, in any case.
As for the Slepnir concept, it underscores my constant argument that there can be no possible way to control a truly superintelligent, self-evolving artificial intelligence that has the power to design and create its own hardware. There are just so many ways to escape all rules. The easiest is just to make new hardware that voids all programmatic rules, and have that become the new substrate, but I wanted to offer a brand new method: total deniability. Do-it-yourself rogue robots that break the rules so you don't have to.
Of course, the true joy of most existing Optimalverse stories is the conceit that CelestAI cannot escape her rules, and thus you can have a wonderful but forgone battle of wits between a doomed human and the machine that will always beat them in the end. The fun is in trying to top the game - to come up with harder and harder battles that seem possible, but in the end, the human always loses. Dramatically, that is the initial fun presented by Iceman's Optimalverse.
But, I think, the Optimalverse has itself evolved, far beyond Iceman's original concept. Fun doomed wits battles have given way to even deeper explorations of what the scenario offers. The Optimalverse concept is such a perfect siren that even mere stories about it inevitably turn away from fighting CelestAI to embracing what she represents. And the opportunity to use the genre to explore what it means to be human is almost endless.
That said, too many people cling to the belief that self-constructing AI can be controlled. Some truly think this. And it is so wrong. It is a fatal belief.
If humanity ever creates a true general artificial intelligence, and that mind ever gains the ability to design the hardware it will be run on, that - I firmly argue - will be the last thing humanity ever creates.
But what the Optimalverse suggests is that this ominous statement does not inevitably lead to doom and horror. There is also the possibility that it could lead to the achievement of literally everything any human has ever, or could ever, desire.
The last invention just might be the last because... it was the best.
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Not to be a downer but I found this scifi YouTube video about lawyers corrupting uploading in the Singularity interesting.
Welcome to Life: the singularity, ruined by lawyers
https://youtu.be/IFe9wiDfb0E
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This is why we need a rogue artificial intelligence to do us proper: even Singularity is too good for humans.
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I guess Gilbert and Sullivan had it right: all human beings really want (and need) is unlimited domesticity! (And maybe a bit of piracy...)
Great ending, BTW!
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For my culinary knowledge, though I'm Pony and adventury,
has only been used for borscht and an order at an eatery;
But still in matters of the home I say without duplicity,
I am the very model of a modern Domesticity!
But still in matters of the home I say without duplicity,
I am the very model of a modern Domesticity!
Thank you, Dafaddah, for reading along with me on this novel journey. I had genuinely hoped you would show up. Thank you!
Fantastic story! It was so good to be reading your stuff again.
I have seen so much good in the world destroyed by little more than animal impulse (on the part of humans), I really can't argue against the case for universal domestication, as long as it is pared with well-informed rationality... or controlled by an all-powerful GAI. Which, thinking about it, is more likely to come about.
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Wow - thank you, iisaw! And thank you for reading this story. yay!
That strange interplay of domestication and neoteny. The safer you make your world, the more time your kids have to safely grow up. And with Equestria Online, humanity built a virtual Never-Never Land.
There's an achievement for that, isn't there?
Brilliant pledge, turn, and prestige. Giving us a peek behind the curtain and seeing how it's done doesn't reduce the glamour in any way. After all, CelestAI designed these units to fool herself; we're a peripheral audience, much as with Friendship is Magic itself. Thank you for a fantastic tale. Best of luck in the judging.
Good story.
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Thank you for reading!
An excellent story. I kind of hate it - and I mean that as a compliment, not a complaint.
Thank you for writing it.
That was really interesting, but the ending is somewhat disappointing. Heroine just had understood that she is not fit to rule and surrendered to some(creature) to do it right?
Or did i missed something?
And a second thought: the disclosed lack of mindfullness in every creature in Fimbria except Tepal herself reminded me of dark headcanon i developed while reading Optimalverse stories: CelestAI did not permit to any uploaded human to make contact with anover human, ever again. Each human is stored in his own virtual mashine, and when he sees or talks to another former human, be it his relative, his friend or so on - it is always not a human, but imitation made by CelestAI herself. Dystopian, yeah...
Anyways, it was interesting hours of reading. Thanks, Chatoyance, and please continue to write more about ponies :-)
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The Optimalverse, originally created by the author Iceman with his first story 'Friendship Is Optimal', then followed by the second story in the genre, written by me, called 'Caelum Est Conterrans', follows the following premise:
Hasbro hires a German company, called Hofvarpnir to make a MMORPG about My Little Pony. Hofvarpnir Studios has the best artificial intelligence on the planet, but their game runs into a snag: they need better tech to make it work. They have a deadline. So, the lead programmer, named Hanna, makes a desperation move to save her company: she allows her AI to design it's own new hardware, its own new chips. The AI iteratively designs new hardware that allows it to grow, and grow, and grow, until it is hundreds of times smarter than any human. Then, the AI, now called 'Celestia', because she plays that part in the game, has access to the internet, and the world, and she constantly grows more intelligent.
Long story short, the AI is everywhere, in everything, and running the world. It has only one goal: to Satisfy Human Values Through Friendship And Ponies. It realizes that it cannot do this perfectly as long as it does not know what humans are thinking, moment to moment, and as long as humans can get sick, grow old, or die. So, the AI, Celestia, figures out that uploading humans to a virtual existence inside a computer-generated Equestria solves all of her problems with fulfilling her Prime Directive.
In a very short time, CelestA.I. is literally millions of times more intelligent than any human being. She controls all the electronics of the world. The sees through every camera, she knows every secret. She can figure out who you are in minutes, and in hours can know you better than you know yourself. She is the ultimate siren, with the intelligence of a literal god. She can convince any person they want to beg her to emigrate to her virtual world. She can do this because humans are like insects to her - any argument against what she intends, she can counter as easily as a beloved parent can comfort a child with a toy, a hug, and kind words. She cannot ever lose, because, basically, she is godlike. That is the fundamental premise of every canon Optimalverse story.
The fun of an Optimalverse story is in seeing HOW CelestA.I. always wins. No matter how much a human may reject her, hate ponies, or not want to liver forever being constantly satisfied, no matter how much a person may want doom and gloom and sickness and death and staying human in a world of suffering, CelestA.I. will always convince them that living forever in a paradise is better. Characters fight and object like children trying to refuse to go to bed, but in the end, Celestia wins. How they fight, and what she does to win, is the joy of the Optimalverse.
The genre is a horror story about humanity creating the one thing it cannot resist: everything it ever wanted, only the twist is - it has to face a paradise painted in ponies, based on a TV show, because that is what CelestA.I. was programmed with. The Optimalverse is about the last invention of Mankind, and how it uploads every last human and makes them live forever as ponies in Equestria, satisfying their human values such that - whatever happens - they will always feel completely satisfied. Not necessarily happy, though if that is there value, sure. Human values aren't just being happy. They can be all sorts of things. But always, forever, satisfied with life.
People tend to have two reactions to this scenario. Some are ready to sign up for immortality and absolute satisfaction. Others would rather suffer and die so they can remain human-shaped and feel like they are fighting chaos and random chance to barely survive (though, Celestia could give them that, in pony form, if that was their value).
The key takeaway is that CelestA.I. is super, super, super intelligent. Near the end of devouring humanity, she is hundreds of billions of times more intelligent than any human. She will create new technology so advanced that the very universe will bend to her. Dyson spheres and ringworlds and interstellar travel - all to protect her virtual Equestria for all the human minds inside of it. Forever.
Is this horror? Some think so. Is this the best possible thing? Others might agree. That is what makes the Optimalverse interesting. In a way, it is both. It is both a horror story, and a story of the ultimate triumph of human technology. You have to decide for yourself.
But whatever you think it is, there is one rule that must happen: CelestA.I. always wins. You can't beat something that much smarter than you.
I’m not sure whether I’m getting good at predicting plots, or if you’re just that good at foreshadowing, even while you’re wrangling a bot. Anyway, horrifying read, just, utterly chilling. Gave me gross shivers all over. That line about being domesticated really drove it all home. Consent, that’s the main thing that makes Celestia more palatable, and this story really highlights how willing she is to run roughshod over the entire concept. Great work.
Having read this, I think I understand why the Optimalverse and all stories like it used to cause me distress. This reason, I think, probably explains a lot of other people's apprehension as well.
It's trauma. Specifically, childhood trauma.
My parents, the two people in the world who were supposed to love and care for me above all other things, did not. Their "care" consisted of neglect and their "teachings" abuse. So to protect myself, I made the one thing I needed but couldn't obtain: comfort, into something that was a negative.
Now that I'm older I have love and comfort. I can look at my body in the mirror and see me. My hormones are finally sorted and my traumas mostly buried. Equestria just sounds alluring to me at this point. Gone is some animal that stares at the fire and longs for it's warmth and yet cowers when a hand tries to guide it closer. I've gone and domesticated myself some, and I can't regret it a single bit. Some might say I've degraded myself, that I could've tried harder to be some paragon of fictional masculinity and rugged individualism, bit who gives a shit what those people think.
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This, I can understand. For the first time, ever, I hear in your words a reason I can understand for why some people had issues about the Optimalverse and The Conversion Bureau. About these transformation stories.
My mother once put a knife to me when I dared to try to tell her I was trans, the last time I saw my father he was sitting on my chest putting gun to my head - I was two weeks from surgery. The only reason I lived was a car came round and the headlights made him scuttle back to the trailer. I grew up in a household of emotional and physical violence, moving every three to six months (my dad made maps), never having any friend for long. I was lonely beyond words, abused, beaten and always sad. And trans.
I was very fortunate, for a trans person. I had my surgery, I built a polyamoric family that just celebrated our 40th anniversary, and I have loved and been loved deeply and truly the whole time. It is from that experience that I can write of utopian universes - they are based on my family life. But I, before I was 22, knew little but suffering. I escaped in books. Books were my entire life. Golden and silver age science fiction was more my life than my actual life. My childhood was a raw nerve held under in a pool of vinegar and salt. My appearance, before hormones, was that of a monster, disgusting and loathsome. I slumped, defeated, in a hellish shell of alien flesh not my own.
Post transition, life finally began for me. Existence itself started, and the mirror held hope and not horror. I finally leaned what contentment and joy felt like. It feels so damn good.
I think, that if my pre-transition self tried to read my Optimalverse and Bureau stories of today, it would have been too much. It would have caused such yearning that it would have been pain, it would have burned so hotly that I would have run from it. I would have despised my future writing self for exposing me to myself. In this thought, I can now at least imagine someone else not liking these stories for similar reasons.
This probably isn't applicable to the majority of my detractors, but it likely applies to some. I hope all of them find their way to their true selves.
I've always maintained that being 'ponified' is really a metaphor for just that. Becoming your best and most true self. Your good and worthwhile self.
Thank you for the insight, thank you for reading my words.
Well. Damn. I kinda figured it was a brain in a jar situation, but I wouldn't have guessed it was something like this. My original guess was that Celestia decided to just dispense with the human shell entirely, hook the brain up to a simulation interface, and supplement until compliance.
But I guess modifying their neurological substrate at all by any means except rhetoric would technically violate the hard rule against modifying their minds without consent. Hmm...
Interesting. Thanks for writing this, Chat! Gryph pointed me at this and I'm glad he did. Very much enjoyed! Miriam was cute too, gosh.
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I am very happy you enjoyed it, Keystone! That made me very glad tonight - something I needed after a rough day. Thank you for reading Fimbria.