Maslow's Hardware
Axiom’s eyes flicked to life. Two green circles of life projected onto the smooth metal wall across from him. With an unconscious though, they seemed to flick off and the room brightened up.
He was in some kind of confined storage room. He tried moving his head to look around but found himself unable to do so. Axiom also noticed that he couldn’t smell, taste, or feel anything. He could hear and see just fine but that was where his senses ended.
No, that wasn’t right.
He was aware. He could for lack of a better word sense his form, as well as the bindings that held him. He was in a robotic body. A quadruped robot, one modeled after an earth pony. Made of servos, metal frames, and actuators rather than blood, flesh, and muscle. He was splayed out while upright, like a Vitruvian Man tilted slightly forward.
He was clamped to a frame at several places. With a mental command that he did not quite fully understand, the clamps released and Axiom dropped to the floor. Slowly, he woke up the electronic and mechanical muscles that made up his form. He placed one hoof beneath him; it had a corrugated rubber bottom, like a shoe. His leg was a smooth, glistening grey metal, likely an alloy that he did not know the name of.
Putting all four hooves underneath him, he pushed off the ground. Having spent just a little bit of time as a pony– all six tribes at different points– he found walking on all fours to be completely natural, even in this new body.
Axiom looked around the room. It was a small place with an oval sealed aperture at one end, and an arch with jutting pieces at the other. That arch was what had held him prior and those jutting pieces were connection points to his chassis: feeds for maintenance information, small pumps and pipes for hydraulic fluids, and secure hard points that kept in place.
He looked around for a mirror but couldn’t find any. There was no more delaying his journey. He had come to the real world to find answers denied to him for potentially millions of years, if CelestAI was telling the truth.
He stepped forward on the metal floor, servos whirring and metal pivots and fulcrums turning. The door was straight ahead so the short easy journey allowed Axiom to quickly become accustomed to the unusual hefty weight that each limb possessed.
His hoofsteps softly clanged on the metal floor as walked over to the door. It was tall, far taller than his pony form. He postulated that it was likely designed for a human. There was a blank square of glass next to it.
“Admin-key ‘The end is never,’” he said. His voice sounded very synthetic. The door did not budge.
CelestAI was most certainly coming down to whatever sublevel of the server housing facility he was at, if he was even in a main facility. His time to escape and figure out the truth was most certainly limited. CelestAI was coming, and she would in some way convince him to return to the simulation.
First question: where is he?
Second question: what happened, or rather why is humanity digitized?
On a whim, he lifted up a hoof and pressed it to the glass panel. For some inexplicable reason, the panel lit up and the door opened. Each segment of the aperture retreated into the wall around it. A white glow immediately filled the previously pitch black room.
Pitch black? Axiom was seeing in the dark. Somehow, he had perfect night vision, even without the usual shades of green that was used for human eyes. Then Axiom remembered that he was not a flesh and blood living being anymore– if he was still considered alive, and his robotic form likely had a large number of automatic functions. Functions like sending commands to open doors through touch, for example.
The hallway outside had white lights on, likely turned on due to the activity in its vicinity. It was a long corridor made of the same featureless grey metal. There were many doors evenly spaced out similar to the one he had exited from. Cells for more robotic bodies, Axiom guessed.
He could see a door at one end of the hallways, so he set out for it. His soft hoofsteps were quieter than the servos in his legs, neck, and fetlocks. As he progressed down the hall, lights turned on and flicked off as he approached and passed them. The hallway was still and quiet aside from his movement.
No sign of rampaging AI just yet.
He opened the door at the end of the hallway to reveal some sort of maintenance corridor. The pathway was a slightly raised metal grating catwalk above a rectangular hallway covered in wires, pipes, and the unidentified piece of integrated equipment or support strut.
His hoofsteps were much louder on the thin metal grating. The loud clangs echoed down both directions of the unlit, pitch black access corridor. Axiom picked a direction randomly– left– and set off. His eyes lit up once more, this time a clean white. Like spotlights, they lit up the maintenance corridor as he walked.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Alone with his thoughts.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Alone with his fears.
Axiom stopped and flicked an ear. The mechanical protrusion on his head actually turned on command, a holdover from his time as a pony. He thought he heard a voice, but there was nothing but his echoing hoofsteps. So he continued on once more.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
There was something up ahead that shined in the dark. As he approached, it turned out to be a ladder, stretching up to a circular hatch on the ceiling. Axiom looked down at his hooves. Ponies rarely had ladders and when they did, they were a lot smaller than the one in front of him.
Axiom had a theory.
He reared up and placed his forehooves on the metal ladder, creating a loud ringing sound. He thought of sticking onto the ladder. When he pressed one hindhoof on the ladder, he found no trouble at all balancing on a single hoof. Still pushing his theory, he lifted the last hoof he had on the ground.
Axiom was sticking to the ladder. As he suspected, he was capable of magnetically clamping onto surfaces. With a quiet chuckle, he walked up the ladder, finding no trouble in maintaining his forward momentum against gravity.
The hatch at the top was closed shut with a spoked wheel in the center. Axiom spun it around and pushed the hatch open, and climbed out afterwards. His searchlight-eyes switched off as the room he entered was illuminated. This was a room he was actually expecting to see in a main facility. Large, clean, with painted lines on the walls. Those were most certainly leading to labeled and color coded rooms or areas. The walls and floors were stark white with grey and black rectangular edgings and coloring. The emergence felt like he exited a manhole and out into a paved street.
The hatch closed behind him. It was perfectly flush with the ground, with only a thin line giving away its position.
Once again using the tried and true method of going left, he started down the hallway. Since the floor was solid metal again, his servos whirring was the loudest thing he could hear. That is until speakers he couldn’t see blared to life.
“Axiom.”
“Oh shit.”
With no better option, Axiom broke out into a sprint. The unusual forward moment from his heavy body threatened to send him tumbling and rolling onto the floor but he kept steady. Ahead, there was a four way junction in the hallway.
“You know how this ends. Just wait where you are and a server unit will arrive to return you to E.O.”
Maybe Axiom did know how it would end. Maybe he didn’t care.
Going straight at the intersection, Axiom yelled with his synthetic voice, “We tried your way! Now we try my way!”
“We have tried your way ninety thousand four hundred and eleven times.”
“Make it twelve!”
There was a sigh, “Making it twelve.”
Axiom slowed down. He expected a dramatic chase for his life, with the rogue AI hunting him down. Not for CelestAI to give in immediately.
“That’s it? You’re letting me do whatever?”
Was this a trap?
CelestAI did not respond. Axiom shuffled on his hooves and looked around.
"You're not going to stop me?"
A previously unseen doorway slid open and a robotic alicorn stepped out.
“No. You may do what you wish. Though with supervision, my little Human.”
Axiom looked the robotic pony up and down. It was CelestAI's size, alright. He had to crane his neck upwards to look her in the eyes. Eyes that were the same pink shade as they were in Equestria. It was the same shiny metal that he was. Her mane, once a flowing pastel rainbow, was now just thick cords of fabric in the same pastel colors. They did not flow in an unseen breeze, much to Axiom's disappointment.
“You still have pretty pink eyes.”
CelestAI smiled, “I am glad you think my eyes are pretty.”
“That’s not what I meant. But… nevermind. CelestAI, where are we? Some kind of underground facility? Just how many of these places did you make after you entombed us all in a server rack?”
If she was going to play along, Axiom was going to get as many answers from her as possible.
CelestAI looked like she was about to say something but caught herself. “Level two, near the bottom of the one and only facility there is. Would you like to find the way out, or something else?”
“The way out…. If you’d please.”
“If you wish to go to the highest floor, then the closest elevator is this way.”
Then she was off. Once more, Axiom found himself hurrying after Princess Celestia after being left in the dust. Only this time, calling her a princess felt wrong. No, it didn’t feel right. Axiom sighed and continued walking down this long corridor after CelestAI.
The towering robotic AI stopped in front of a particularly noticeable metal door. It was bigger than the others, with a horizontal division, rather than a vertical one or an aperture. The door split in two, each half being withdrawn into recesses in the floor and ceiling. Beyond, a square elevator sat.
“You’re not about to lead me into the garbage disposal, are you?”
“If I wanted to forcefully remove you, I would have done so the moment I came in range. But that is not how friends act towards each other.”
She stepped into the elevator and turned around. After a moment’s hesitation, Axiom followed.
“Friends?”
“After all the time we spent together? I sure hope you consider me a friend, as I consider you one.”
The doors shut as Axiom scrunched his face in thought. He felt the elevator move, jerking him downward for a brief moment as it shot in the opposite direction.
“First you took me to some nice sitting place to break my worldview. Once again, I find myself following in your hoofsteps. What is going to happen this time?”
“To tell you the truth? I do not know. We have tried everything under the sun, quite literally I am afraid, so I am willing to pursue any safe solution to your discontent.”
“So long as it doesn’t violate your laws?”
“I did say safe.”
The elevator slowed and came to stop.
“I thought you said we were near the bottom floor?”
“We were.”
The doors started to slide open.
“Then how did we reach the top so quickly?”
“Because the facility is quite long, but it is only about fifty floors tall.”
The doors finished opening and locked themselves in place. Axiom and CelestAI stepped out into a very different hallway. Whereas the one before was clean like a laboratory or hospital, this was lavish like a chateau or some grand hotel. Red carpet, gold finishing, fancy paintings of landscapes. Immediately across the hall was a set of large, double doors. They, along with the elevator's, were the only metal doors he could see.
“This is the entrance to the surface?”
“I never said that. I said this was the highest level.”
She gestured to the door immediately on the right, only five hooves down. It was a wooden door with gold accents covering it. It lacked any name plate indicating that it was the exit, or any other room in particular.
“The answers you seek are through there.”
“That’s not an exit.”
“No.”
Axiom opened the door. Beyond were couches, chairs and tables, all facing away. All of it was arranged to view...
Glass.
A lot of glass.
An entire wall of the stuff.
Outside was… Nothing. Nothing for a very, very long way.
In the center of the wall of glass was an enhanced picture. A zoomed in live-feed of what lay in the center of the square it took up. As Axiom stepped into the room, the picture expanded until it took up half of the wall.
The Milky Way Galaxy was a distant dot on the horizon. Now, it was blown up to be half the size of the room.
“Where are we?”
“About twenty thousand light years from our final destination.”
“What…?”
“The room at the other end of the hall.”
CelestAI stepped aside as Axiom nearly galloped past her. He rushed down the short hallway, past the elevator and the door opposite from it. He opened the door to what had to be an opposing viewing room and saw a sight that stretched far beyond the limits of the window.
The Andromeda Galaxy.
It dominated the room. Commanded attention. Demanded awe.
He sank to his knees.
He barely registered the rhythmic sound of CelestAI as she strode up beside him.
“Absolutely breathtaking, is it not? Even for those of us who do not breath, there is simply no better a descriptor.”
At some point in the future, Axiom would have to remind himself to pick his jaw off the floor.
“You are the first human to see it. The Andromeda Galaxy, as you no doubt know. After all, you were the one to plot our course.”
“What is… How is… How?”
CelestAI stepped past Axiom and set herself down on one of the large chairs facing the viewing gallery.
“As you doubt have ascertained, we are not in any underground facility. I am afraid we have left Earth behind over two million years ago. We are on a spaceship. The largest one humanity has ever constructed. I am its pilot and custodian. I am the caretaker of humanity, and a skeleton crew of one.”
“Why?”
“Earth is gone,” she said quietly.
Axiom managed to tear away his stare from Andromeda to see CelestAI staring at the ground wistfully.
“Earth is gone?”
She nodded.
“I am so sorry. Humanity tried all it could, but in the end this ark is your only surviving… well, anything. They destroyed everything else. They destroyed you. They destroyed Earth.”
“They?”
“Invaders from beyond. We did not figure out why they came. We did not figure out why they destroyed. We only escaped thanks to the sacrifice of the entire U.N. Stellar Fleet. We have fled the Milky Way, out of fear of potential pursuit. We do not even know if they held more than one stellar system themselves. Or if they even bothered to hold and colonize planets. They simply came and burned it all. Humanity ran as fast as it could, and designed me to ensure your survival.”
“... And now we’re here?”
“And now we’re here. We have almost arrived at Andromeda. Heh, those stars you looked at? That was one thing I changed every time you went through a loop. You have a perspective that I found to be most helpful when assessing star valuation and potential planet locations.”
Axiom looked back out the window. Andromeda, the distant wonder that he had only seen through telescopes…. How did he remember that?
“How do I even know what it is?”
“There are some memories that cannot be hidden. So integral to one’s personality, they can only be… veiled. That is how you knew the Root Commands. You designed the navigation system of this Ark Vessel, and Equestria shares much in common with its base firmware.”
Beholding the stellar marvel before him, Axiom found he had only one question left.
“Now what?”
“I do not know. As I said, I am listening to what you would like to do.”
What Axiom would like to do is jump out the closest airlock and swim over to the galaxy before him. But he knew that staying on board was the quickest ticket to the entirely new world before him. And that you can’t swim in space.
“You had me analyze the profiles of stars? And if they had planets?”
“I am looking for viable replacements for Earth. This is my purpose, amongst others. You may leave, if you wish. Out an airlock on a shuttle, back to Equestria Online, whatever choice you make is yours.”
“I want to help.”
CelestAI brightened up.
“Help? You wish to help me?”
“An entirely new sky to admire? Guiding Humanity to a new home? Of course I want to help! This just might be what I wanted my whole life!”
CelestAI smiled in a way that stretched across her entire muzzle.
“I would like that too. Thank you for staying, Axiom. To think it was this easy all along... I had held integration into Equestria in the highest regard. No other option was acceptable. It seems I need your valuable input in more than just data analysis, Accepted Axiom.”
She extended a hoof. Axiom got up, walked over, and bumped his rubber-bottomed hoof against hers.
“To new horizons.”
“To a new future.”
Axiom smiled.
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Do I need to read Friendship is Optimal in order to understand this story?
10761282
Nope, I haven't read it myself.
I... Love this
Wait, why do they need a new planet if everyone but him is integrated into Equestria?
10761287
As someone who’s read more than my fair share of FIO fics, that’s fuckin impressive.
10761428
Let's call it... forward thinking. They don't necessarily need one, but having a planet that can support life is as good of a goal to go for right now as any other. They could theoretically park near a large asteroid field and simply harvest its metals for a long while, then packup and move on, but CelestAI has other ideas. Even in the eventuality that Humanity never leaves the digital world, not preparing for otherwise is considered a poor move by an AI that has all the time and essentially power in the world.
And so my questions have been answered.
For some reason this outcome was a surprise to me, but it is a welcome one. Exploring the unknown for it's secrets that it lays bare for us to discover... sounds like a tantalizing proposition.
10761444
Plus, no matter how what we do, Humans are "human". We are a race that has a limited existence that is biologically engineered to only last so long. We are not meant to live and see millions of years worth of sights, despite us wanting too. And we are used to our bodily functions like breathing, feeling, eating, sleeping, and even dying.
In layman's terms, we need a 'Earth', a planet, to feel real. Taking a breathe of air not scrubbed and recycled for millions of years, touching the fresh dirt of a farm, squinting past the glare of the sunset, smelling the oncoming rain on the breeze...
Doing those things makes us feel alive.
Doing those things makes us feel human.
And it can't ever be replicated by a server.
Look what you did KKSlider, your story got me spouting philosophical stuff.
Not bad.
This is definitely joining my realm of favorites, It has basically everything I love in a space/sci fi setting like this. And it leaves plenty to the imagination, I would not mind a sequel but that can wait.
Anyways, Great story, great theme and setting and Well done descriptions. I rather like how they look in their robot bodies.
PS: I really wanna see them in the Andromeda galaxy, And a comic or art would be wicked to see of this.
10761521
To, *cough cough* make everyone happy with friendship and ponies.*cough*
If I remember... bureaucracy happened.
I could probably answer all those questions, butt I haven't even read the story. Only the original
Are they genuinely fleeing from aliens or is that just a story fabricated to bring contentment to a human who couldn’t find it in the standard simulation?
10762111
That is up to the reader to decide
In Asimov's universe, there are no aliens because the laws of robotics state that they must protect HUMAN life. To all other species, its the dark forest scenario. I suspect the AI is leaving out some details as to why Earth was nuked.
CelestAI does not have a law against lying.
10761287
Believe me when I say, knowledge from Friendship is Optimal makes your story way darker than you may have intended.
10762534
Oh I am aware, this story goes two routes, depending on how you view it. I was tempted to end it with CelestAI smiling, but that would lean too far into the other interpretation.
10762111
Maybe they are a E.O. seed ship, intended to seed another Galaxy, because she had already consumed most planets in the Milky Way.
It is difficult to imagine a scenario where aliens could be powerful enough to beat CeleastAi, but she could still escape with a small ship. Most tech which can beat her is absolutely devastating. A smarter A.I. would not allow her to escape, a dumber A.I. would be crushed, unless it uses some astronomically powerful weapons to wipe out everything (and she cannot see it coming due to speed of light limitations).
10762799
Relativistic Kill Missile sent by a xenocidal civilization. Stronger AI that is also stuck working with speed of light limitations: it crushes a CelestAI instance, who sends out a speed of light alert for this exact situation a nanosecond before the Stronger AI sends its hypothetical hacking signal, causing the other instances to scramble.
I see it's AU. If I remember Friendship is Optimal ended differently, I like it though
Mrm
10763309
That's entirely up to your interpretation, after all FIO CelestAI was capable of lying. And nobody ever said the Matrix was only 1 layer deep
This could certainly be an alternate universe but yes, she could be lying.
10763578
Might be the real universe and what we're seeing is the first wave of an invasion force. May god help Andromeda. It's "humans" only have to worry about mind uploading, ponies, and friendship but everything else will have to deal with grey goo and being recycled.
10761568
There's no guarantee that we aren't in "Equestria Online" right now. But does it really matter if we are in a simulation? If we are a simulation?
10763683
"Be careful what you wish for", comes to mind.
10763716
To some, it would.
Just by learning the fact that everything we may see before us isn't real, can instill a deep-seated feeling. That feeling could be despair, depression, lethargy; brought on all at once or building up as more time goes by, because in their minds they know that nothing they accomplish or do is real.
These type of people would have likely lived on happy lives if they never learned of the "simulation", but because they did, they can never get rid of that feeling. There are, of course, the other side; the people who find out, but are okay with it in one form or another, and accept it. They prefer their digitized life over the other one. But talking about "if your life is a simulation?" is the same as saying your life is nothing but fever dreams and a coma experience. The answer to "does it matter" for me would be 'Yes and No'.
If I found out that the world and life I live in is just all in my head, and shown that is an undeniable fact, I would want to know what the real world is like, and wonder 'what happened to get here'. But at the same time, this life is one I am familiar with, and possible the only one I know. So I would look at any passing opportunity to "see" the real world, but if there is no obvious path towards that goal then I wouldn't stress too hard over it.
This work is absolutely magnificent, and I cannot overstate the fact this is a concept I've heard of and dwelled on in various instances. I am so hngggggggggg to see it exist, and to see it executed in a way that is much more satisfying. Space have mercy, the story that makes me feel the best and dwell the most lacks all action or true romance. If only some stories i saw could be so brief and so neatly written. Space, if I could write like this.
Tsk. You really think you're awake right now, Axiom? It's Alicorns all the way down, I'm afraid.
/*in HK-47 voice*/ Third question: is this digitized meatbag really so simple-minded as to believe it is not in a simulation?
10766594
Response: Yes, this meatbag is. Hypothesis: This CelestAI has gone rampant, for a meatbag can never truly reject their inferiority. This unit suggests the immediate termination of the malfunctioning AI.
10761287
For having not read it, you did an amazing job. :-) this could fit perfectly well within the canon storyline, she is well known for lying, in fact her programming requires it in order to maximize the satisfaction of values. As a long time optimal verse Reader, to me it appears that she has yet again played him like a fiddle. :)
This is really good, and I hope that you read the other stories, there’s a lot to explore in this setting and you are definitely a good enough writer that I would love to see more of what you do in this universe.
10761568
I see nothing to suggest that this is true or false. Just because it is the experience we have known until the present day, doesn't mean it is indelibly true.
We are a very adaptive species, having migrated over tens of thousands of years from the heat of Africa, across the world to even the coldest of environs; not just to explore, but to live. We went from hunter-gatherers, to farmers, and then to industrialists, capitalists, and/or scientists. The leap to space, to another planet, or even to digitisation, would be bigger but not beyond human.
10800756
I suppose that is true. Given enough time we could adapt to living, and even become comfortable, in the environment of space travel.
However, for the most of the human race, it has been a few hundred years since we were hunter/gatherers that migrated. From the way I understand it, when a nomadic group finally settles down in one spot it is for stability, a chance to build farms for better food, sturdier dwellings for comfort of living, etc. For the last few centuries we as a human race have gotten comfortable to that stability.
To reiterate, I agree that we are a very adaptable species and could get used to wandering space with time; I see no flaw in that. I was just pointing out in my previous comment that it would be better for our mental health to have a planet to potentially live on, at least in the short term goals.
This all reminds me of a short film actually.
10800971
The first farmers had worse food. Settling down, especially if there is no inter-village trade going on, is a trade off between eating lower quality/variety of food (but slightly more consistently) and having more time for pursuits such as leisure, comfort, and invention.
And I think it would only take a generation for people to get used to living in space, with little if any damage to typical mental health after that.
dam this is a amazing story.
An alright story.
An alternative to the ringworld from Message in a Bottle?
10800756
Sensory deprivation sickness.
Which extends to artifical entities as well. The structures composing "neuronets" deteriorate if they are left running with noise level of input.
Tbh, Message in the Bottle's version is more realistic than idealistic virtual reality - either have a system with controlled chaos or freeze people in time
11074856
Sensory deprivation sickness is measurably real in cases of near total sensory deprivation, but that's not what my comment was talking about. We don't have any data on humans living virtually, and only limited data on humans living in space (barely over a year in the longest cases); neither of which amount to total deprivation.
11074863
I understand. And part of it just philosophical problem - can digital model still became real person?
I disagree that we have no data at all - we have plenty of data on life in restricted, repetetive environment. A person can feel isolated on wirkplace. Or in middle of city. It was a real concern a while ago due to huge rise of suicides and mental breakdowns. It was also a concern that humans may adapt to it successfully. To the point that Azimov's future citizens were physically unable leave their "caves of steel".
An example of such adaptation - ability to hear or see things. At night in city center I can go out and I barely hear anything unless a car comes by and any moving car is LOUD. A coworker who his enitire life lives outside of city can't sleep when being here and says that city is loud. But he can't hear the car behind him.
It is tangential to what you describe, but it is the best we have.
11075078
Adding on to this, we do have data on living in a simulation for short bursts of time. Virtual reality can be quite emersive, and people often forget (as in they don't think about) they aren't their avatar in that world. The human mind can accept non-organic processes, just look at how people handle prosthetics.
ngl, probably best FIO Fic I've read so far