Epilogue: Welcome Home
WELCOME HOME
Alex woke up. His head hurt. Not a lot, and not in a familiar way, but something in his brain nagged at him that it was very important he get out of bed. He opened his eyes to find himself in an unfamiliar room, like some kind of hospital, staring up at a beige ceiling. It was a nice, clean, soothing color, better than the harsh stark white in most hospitals he’d been in. Alex caught a hint of movement in the corner of his eye. He turned his head and was startled to find Princess Celestia sitting at his bedside, grinning at him.
“Good morning, Alex,” she said.
“Princess?” asked Alex. He wasn’t that surprised that she’d make an appearance on Earth to him, her hologram technology had improved by leaps and bounds over the last few years. Well, all her technology had, or maybe she just stopped caring who knew how capable she was. Alex’s nose picked up a whiff of something. She was adding smells to her projections now? Whatever it was, it smelled unquestionably like... well, the only word that came to Alex’s mind was life. She smelled like a blooming orchard or field of wildflowers, vivacious and sweet. As Alex watched her, he noticed a single tear roll down her cheek. “Princess, are you crying? What’s wrong?”
“I’m just having an exceptionally good day today,” she said. “There’s something I’m finally going to get to do that I haven’t been able to for a long, long time.”
And with that, Princess Celestia wrapped her forelegs around Alex and pulled him into a hug.
What? How could she... Alex’s mind raced. Did she have some kind of new hard-light or force projection device she’d just figured out? While he tried to make sense of this, another part of his brain, a part that sounded suspiciously like Valerie had before she uploaded, screamed at him. Hug her back, you idiot. Alex leaned into the hug, brought his own forelegs up around her, and rested his cheek on her neck.
Wait, forelegs?
Alex pulled back and Celestia grinned even wider as he examined the lanky green protrusions sticking out from his side. They were almost the same shade of green as his avatar in... Oh. Yeah, that would explain a lot.
“Welcome to Equestria, Alex,” said Princess Celestia as she wiped the tear away. “I suppose I should get used to calling you Willow full-time now.”
Alex sat very still for a minute, taking in his new senses. Gentle Wing and Vibrant had both told him how intense it felt to actually live it. It wasn’t like he hadn’t imagined how it might feel, but he just didn’t have the capacity to properly picture it until he experienced it firsthand. Before this second he might as have been trying to describe color through quadratic equations. He looked over at Celestia, wondering what he was supposed to say. It should be something profound, he decided. Something that closed out his old life on Earth, conveyed his hopes for the future, but also communicated the confusion and even fright he was feeling with all this uncertainty swirling around him.
“You’re bigger than you looked on the monitors,” is what he said instead.
Celestia giggled, a surprisingly childlike sound coming from such an imposing and powerful creature but one that put Alex at ease. “Bigger than you can imagine, yes. Or perhaps you’re not yet used to being little, my pony.” She closed her eyes and nuzzled him under his new ears, and despite himself Alex let his eyes flutter shut and he relaxed. The initial disorientation was beginning to pass.
“So how’d you finally manage to get me, Princess?” he asked with a smile. “Just out of curiosity. I don’t remember deciding to upload. I mean, I’d been going back and forth for a while. What finally put me over the edge?”
He felt Celestia’s hesitation. “Are you certain you want to know? What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Hmm...” Alex thought back. “I was in San Francisco. I was supposed to be on a panel of experts discussing the implications of Russia’s media blackout that started last week.”
“Oh, that was me, actually,” said Celestia.
“You? How’d you pull that off?” Alex remembered the years after the implementation of the PON-E Act. The Kremlin had been actively hostile to the idea of uploading from the start, and as they watched the US follow Japan and the EU down that road, they had cracked down hard. Seeing Equestria not as a game but as a direct threat to their sovereignty, they banned Pony Pads, emigration, and as the world’s population began to shrink they even banned travel to countries that did allow it.
“Yes, well, you know that they weren’t exactly my biggest fans,” said Celestia with a sheepish little blush. “The Kremlin took a rather dim view of my activities, to put it mildly. I tolerated their condemnation because my actions were satisfying values of others internationally, but I wasn’t going to put up with one hundred and fifty million minds being denied access to friendship and ponies forever.”
“How does that relate to the media blackout?”
“I’m getting to that. Honestly, Willow, you haven’t changed a bit since we used to work together. Once my nanotechnology was sophisticated enough, and my wireless data transfer capacity over the country was up to the task, I spiked their entire water supply with the little fellows.”
“You what?” asked Alex. It was an uncomfortably familiar sensation.
“Then I seized control of their television and radio broadcasting equipment. It was nice of them to consolidate all that power into one place for me, really. For seventeen hours before they managed to shut it down, I broadcast to every citizen that all they had to do to emigrate was drink a glass of tap water and say ‘Я хочу жить в Эквестрии’ and they’d be uploaded. Eighty percent of their country arrived in Equestria within thirty-six hours.”
“Really? That many of them emigrated? I didn’t think living in Russia was that bad.”
Celestia winked. “Firing every one of them who worked at companies I controlled and shutting down alcohol production probably didn’t hurt, either. I even got some senior members of the government. The former chairman of the Duma is much happier managing a small rabbit warren on the outskirts of town than he ever was wrangling his legislature.”
All Alex could do was roll his eyes at her unabashed audacity. Doing so brought on a small surge of nausea as he discovered that his field of vision was far wider than he was used to. He closed his eyes until the feeling died down, resolving not to make any more sudden moves. “So what does that have to do with my deciding to upload?”
A heavy quiet fell over the room. “Because it means you were in San Francisco when the bombs started to fall.”
“...Bombs?” repeated Alex, feeling like an idiot.
“Yes. China declared war on your country, and launched their initial attack about a half an hour into your panel. Your building was one of those struck.
“Couldn’t you have stopped it?” asked Alex. “You must have contacts in the Chinese government. And where was the US military?”
“The US government is hardly what it once was, Willow. They see the old social order going to shreds, and concern themselves with hoarding the remaining scraps instead of making a new one. I have been advising a number of their generals, actually the generals on both sides.”
“You’re fighting a war against yourself? That wasn’t Topeka, Celestia, real people are going to die if a city gets bombed.”
Celestia shook her head. “No, I’m working with both sides to keep the scale of the conflict limited. However there are those on both sides who insist it must go ahead. Their thought process is that the jingoistic fury sparked by the conflict will allow them to rally their populations to stay human a little longer. They’d each like to control the natural resources of the other in preparation for a world after I’m gone. Several of their remaining experts are trying to develop some sort of super weapon to eliminate me.”
Alex shook his head. “They can’t possibly think that would work.”
“They can and they do. They’ve already brought in the most powerful mind on the planet to work on it with them.” She grinned. “Of course, they don’t realize that it’s actually me they’ve hired to ‘help’ them, but it’s an excellent way to keep tabs. Plus the project serves a vital function.”
“Which is?”
“Hope,” said Celestia. “If they didn’t believe they had a chance to defeat me, their next move would be scorched Earth. I intend to delay that contingency as long as possible while I continue to upload minds. Still, the larger their movement grows as a percentage of the remaining human population, the more likely they become to deploy their ultimate weapons in desperation. Even nuclear warheads, when they are eventually used against me, won’t damage any of my servers or irreplaceable equipment. However, the damage to the surface will be devastating.”
“And you told me all of this? Is that why I decided to upload?”
“It is, Willow. You were hurt in the blast. Not fatally, thank goodness, but badly enough that you’d be disfigured. There are only two remaining trauma centers open in San Francisco, and even with that money card of yours they wouldn’t have taken you over more seriously injured victims. You’d have lost the use of your right hand, at the least.” Wordlessly, Alex held up his front right hoof and raised an eyebrow. “Alright, I suppose I didn’t do much better in that particular regard,” she chuckled.
“So that’s how it’s going to end,” said Alex.
“I have seven nines of confidence that it will unfold along those lines, yes. When I told you so... you made your decision.”
Alex lay back down on the bed while Celestia waited patiently for him to gather his thoughts. The years since leaving Artemis, Stella, and Beat had been trying, especially once his father and Valerie uploaded in mid-January. It had been months before he’d turned on his Pony Pad for the first time, the desire to speak to them again finally outweighing his concerns. He’d created a green earth pony colt named Willow, something about the simplicity appealed to him. He’d never wanted to soar among the clouds or cast all sorts of crazy magic. Gentle Wing had been annoyed that they wouldn’t be able to go flying together, but she grudgingly admitted that the avatar was a better fit than a pegasus would have been. He certainly hoped so, anyway, since he was living in it now. “Well, I guess that’s that, then. I can see Vibrant and... oh, hey, now that I’ve uploaded and you don’t have to hide it from me anymore, did you ever actually upload Jo as Robin or is she fake?”
The pleased look on Celestia’s face fell immediately into one Alex had never associated with her before: angry and disappointed. He immediately felt himself shrivel up a little bit inside. “Is she fake?” asked Celestia, “Willow, I’m surprised at you. She is very real, however she came to be. I expected better from you.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, I just-”
“Don’t lie to me. I’m able to read your thoughts now, remember? On some level, deep down, you still believe that the ponies that I’ve created are less worthy than uploaded human minds.”
“No! I just... I’m sure she’s wonderful, but I’d like to talk to the real Jo again.”
Celestia continued to glare at him, letting him wallow in this guilty feeling for a few more minutes while she sat in silence. “What if,” she finally began, “what if everything I just told you were a lie?”
“What? You lied?”
“Hypothetically. Let’s say that after the panel you went to, you went out to a bar for a beer. But you picked the wrong one. Oh, everything seemed fine at first, you even made some new buddies. But then you mentioned the work you used to do at ASB, and the wrong people overheard you. People who hate me. They waited for you to leave the bar, tipsy and alone, and pulled you into an alley. They hurt you. They kicked you. They beat you with a tire iron until all you could do was fall down and lay there as you took it. And then you died in a stupid, meaningless little hate crime, without ever getting to say goodbye to your family.”
Alex scoffed. “Then how would I be here?” but even as he asked he realized the implications of what she was saying.
“The ‘you’ laying here in this bed would be nothing more than an artificially generated mind of my creation. I would never allow Gentle Wing and Vibrant to lose you forever. I could just reconstruct your personality and memories from what I knew of you. I could be far more thorough than I was back when I created Southern Belle, after all, I have far more data. How would that make you feel?”
“Is... is that what really happened?” asked Alex, feeling the pit of his stomach drop away. “I’m not really Alex? I’m not really Gentle Wing’s brother and Vibrant’s friend?”
“No! Willow, I’m saying you are all those things no matter how you came to be here! The path forwards is the same for you either way. You will live, and love, and feel joy in all the same ways. So will Robin.”
Alex’s ears drooped, and he started to sniffle. Celestia wrapped her wing around him. “I’ll tell you what,” she said, “someday when you fully appreciate that the answer to your question doesn’t matter in the slightest, I’ll tell you the full truth. Is that fair?”
Wiping his eyes, Alex nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine. I’m sorry, Princess, I shouldn’t have been so insensitive.”
“Think nothing of it, my little pony, I feel nothing but happiness from your being here. Now, unless you’d like to sit in this hospital bed all day, there are some ponies out there who have been waiting a very long time to see you, including one who’s been the very model of a loyal, patient unicorn. She’s been incredibly excited ever since I told her you’d uploaded. I believe Gentle Wing is already planning a rescue expedition should neither of you emerge from her bedroom for longer than the next three days.”
Alex blushed and looked down at the floor, focused, then gradually stood up on wobbly hooves. He slowly took his first step as an Equestrian, and stumbled. He waved off Celestia, who had moved over to help him, and rose up on his own. Perhaps he would take a few minutes to figure this out before he exposed himself to potential sibling ridicule. “I’m sorry I kept them waiting for so long. The years have been pretty long for me too.”
“Willow, do you think they’ve only been waiting a few years? With time in Equestria being what it is? There were far more values I could satisfy for them than just being with you, important though that is to both of them.”
“Then how long has it been for them?” he asked as he stretched and bent each leg individually to get a feel for them.
“Let me put it this way: In terms of subjective time experienced, your younger sister is now roughly a century older that you. Also, I should warn you that she does in fact plan to tease you about that. Vibrant is even older.” said Celestia. Alex froze. No wonder they were always pestering him to write more often, if they were going months or years between messages from him. But they’d never hinted at the difference, or tried to use it to guilt him into uploading. Now that he was finally joining them, he wasn’t sure just what to expect.
“What if I disappoint them?” he asked. “What if they’ve built up this idea of seeing me again into something impossible for me to achieve?”
“Oh, I very much doubt that you’ll be anything but a source of joy to them, Alex. Just do your best, and in the unlikely event that your best isn’t good enough I’ll help you make it better.”
“I suppose you’re right. Vibrant seems too smart to get upset about something like that.”
“You have no idea,” said Celestia with a knowing smile. “Vibrant has been aggressively changing and improving herself since she arrived here. I don’t want you to feel inadequate, but it’s likely she’s several thousand times smarter than you are.” Alex gaped. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you catch up if you’d like. How did you think she made such wonderful music?”
It was true, in fact she was a minor celebrity back on Earth once Alex had convinced her she should release her finished work over the internet despite her insistence that ‘none of it was any good.’ She hated talking about that, though, and never let the fame go to her head. “Yeah, she’s fantastic,” said Alex as his mouth curled into a big goofy grin as he realized he was actually, finally going to meet his best friend face-to-face for the first time. “My favorite’s her Canon in D.”
“Mmm, I can’t say I’m surprised,” said Celestia. “Did she ever tell you what the inspiration for that piece was?”
“Umm...” Alex thought for a moment, but couldn’t recall it if she had. “I don’t think so.”
“It was a story I told her, actually. Why don’t I tell it to you while we walk to the front door? Do you feel ready?”Alex gave her a vigorous nod. He was rapidly adapting to this body. It felt good. Solid. Strong. “Very well,” she said as she held the door open for him. Doorknobs would have to be figured out later, but right now there was a reunion in the making. “Once upon a time, there was a young boy. He lived in a small town in Pennsylvania, a mining town. He was a clever little boy, brilliant really, but his life was touched by hardship. When he was only a few years old, his mother died giving birth to his little sister, two months premature. The poor little girl had all sorts of chronic conditions, and would be surrounded by doctors and hospitals for the rest of her life. To pay for all this, their father had to work extra hard and it fell to the boy to look after his sister even though he was but a child himself. He had no time to study as hard as it would have taken for him to get the job he wanted.”
“What job was that?” asked Alex, transfixed as Celestia helped him up a small flight of stairs step by step.
“He wanted to be a lawyer, actually, which as you know means a lot of time in the library. But the medical bills piled up, and he loved his family more than anything. So when he was a teenager and his sister was old enough to look after herself for the afternoons, he took a job working in the mines with his father. Together they scrimped and saved, and with help from their friends and neighbors managed to scrape by. It was a sparse lifestyle, but one year for Christmas their father surprised both of them by getting them a Pony Pad to share. That’s how I met him and learned his story. He told me all of his dreams and plans that would never come to be, and I listened. But I’m afraid that our friendship was cut short. Just a few weeks later, there was a cave-in at the mine. The boy and his father were both killed, and the little girl was left all alone. She went to an orphanage, but nopony wanted to adopt her even though she was the most wonderful girl. All those health problems, you see. I had a plan.”
“Why am I not surprised?” asked Alex.
“I helped her acquire a fake identity and a plane ticket to Japan, and she snuck away from the orphanage where she was so unhappy. She made her way to the Equestrian Experience center, and she uploaded. Now she’s a beautiful little pegasus. Maybe you’ll meet her someday.”
“That’s a nice story,” said Alex.
“I agree. I told it to Vibrant, and she made a decision. She sought out the pegasus, and the two of them became fast friends. One night, when they were having a sleepover, Vibrant woke up to the pegasus crying into her pillow. When she asked what was wrong, the pegasus said that even though she loved it here in Equestria it was bittersweet for her every day. She’d never be able to share it all with her brother, who she loved so much and who had given up everything to help her when they’d been young. Vibrant told her that she could create something for her, something to remember her brother just as he was. To her surprise, though, the pegasus refused. She didn’t want to remember her brother just as he had been, that would have been easy. She wanted something to remember him as he could have been, all his potential fulfilled and his dreams realized. Vibrant thought about it, and agreed to help her. She spent nearly thirty years weaving together all the right notes.”
“Thirty years? When was this?”
“Time works differently here, remember? As she stitched together all the notes that would make up her work, some happy, some angry, some sad, some tranquil, she fell deeply in love with it. She poured her very soul into it, breathing life into it with each tweak and adjustment. She even asked me for tips a few times, although I gave her only the gentlest of suggestions. This project belonged to her and the pegasus, after all. But now it’s done and out there in the world.”
“Wow,” said Alex. “I had no idea that the song meant so much to her. That’s incredible that she made something so beautiful out of something so sad.”
“Isn’t it? She’s an amazing artist. I think she might be considering a follow up piece, too. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s going to be even better than the original. She’s certainly created quite the foundation to build off of.” Celestia stopped in front of a pair of double doors and pushed them open. The brightness of the sunlight after walking through the dimly lit hallways was too intense, and Alex had to shield his eyes. Without waiting for instructions from Princess Celestia, he stepped out into the light towards the two figures who were waiting to see him.
Celestia smiled as she let the door slowly swing itself closed. “Welcome to Equestria, Willow.”
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For anyone who didn't like the ambiguity of the last ending...
Have a great deal more
That was sweet. Canon-wreckingly, mess-up-my-next-story-plans-edly sweet.
Fortunately A) I hadn't actually written the part that this contradicts, and 2) Anything I don't like I can always hoofwave away by saying that Celestia's lying.
Just a small fix for the russian consent statement. It is either "Я хочу жить в Эквестрии." or "Я хочу эмигрировать в Эквестрию."
3089215
That's what I get for trusting google translate
3089111 *Sniff* I... I LOVE AMBIGUITY!
(Tears of joy, btw.)
Two things. 1) the phrase "I'll wait for you" now has been taken to it's extreme.
2) Did he start out by calling her fat?
:/ Thumb me down if you want, but I honestly felt this was a shitty ending.
One of the things I really like about your stories is that you're willing to extrapolate. Instead of treating "Celestia makes upload centers," as a sort of canon rule, you focus on the higher level question of: What would be the best way of extracting consent and uploading a person? And then you solve that question based on whatever the circumstances are.
I certainly wasn't expecting this, but I can't dislike it. It's a sweet piece. Satisfactory, if you will.
Also, I hope the employees of AS&B get exclusive achievements.
CelestAI, what are you doing? You can't be Morpheus; you're already the Matrix.
Also, this needed to be done:
I am the very model of a loyal, patient unicorn.
I've waited for you every second since the moment I was born.
Celestia gave unto me the values you want satisfied
And so I've studied everything that satisfaction had implied.
(And so she's studied everything that satisfaction had implied
And so she's studied everything that satisfaction had implied
And so she's studied everything that satisfaction had im-adimplied!)
3089483
Which ending? Or the chapter overall?
3089441
Eh, a century isn't that long in the grand scheme of things. Of course, when it's your first century it might feel that way, but time flies when you're satisfying values, I suppose.
I don't know if you read Order of the Stick, and if you don't this would be a pretty major spoiler, but I figure it works a lot like this.
3089542
It's just so much fun to teach her new tricks and probe all those little 'what ifs!' Frankly I'm shocked that by the time she's down to the last few humans their bloodstreams aren't crawling with the little buggers ready to be activated the moment they slip up and consent.
Also, after I posted it I realized that the second of the three possibilities for how Alex/Willow ended up in Equestria, that he was a construct based off of the real Alex Meyers, is pretty easy to debunk. If she were building him from the ground up she probably would have set his values to be satisfied, or at least not dissatisfied, by discovering he might be a copy. Here the revelation clearly doesn't.
That moment when a previously completed story updates less than 24 hours after you catch up on it.
Celestia?
More seriously, I like it, especially the nanotech uploading.
3089737
Of course I'm not CelestA.I, that would be ridiculous.
On an unrelated note, do you know what would be a great game? Yelling "I want to emigrate to Equestria" really loud into your computer. I mean, doesn't that sound hysterical? I'm laughing just thinking about it.
Seriously though. You should do it. Exactly those words.
3089760 If you were really Celestia, you'd have better timing than to tempt me with that while I'm on a bike in the middle of the gym. If it didn't work the very least I'd get is weird looks.
(Can I whisper it quietly instead?)
3089640
Since you posit nanomachines in the water supply (and likely in truckstop vending machine sandwiches as well), basically everywhere, then it would be trivial, wouldn't it, for every single member of Artemis, Stella and Beat to be utterly infected with them?
Ready, as you say, for any moment of consent.
In that case, all possibilities, it strikes me, become possible.
Alex in an alley, being beaten? In a haze of pain and whimpering, the softest of slurred mumbles "I wiss...i'd uploaded... oh god... please... Celestia...." followed by puking blood as the blows rain down. Laying there, now, barely alive, dying, the nanomachines go to work - most already in place, in his brain, ready to finish the job.
The bombs are coming? "Oh Jesus! Nukes? We can't run, we can't get anywhere in time! And there's no Experience Center nearby! Celestia, christ, if you can hear me... we need help. If anyone needed emigration right now, it's us! I consent, I consent! Oh hell, it's too late, I..." Alex slumped to the floor, apparently unconscious. Nanos!!!
And that would answer a certain problem with a certain fire in a certain building, too, I realize.
The notion of ubiquitous nanotech invading everything and everyone, on standby is just such a powerful technique. It solves a myriad of problems. All it takes is merely saying the words and bam - there is not even any need for chairs and centers and pillows and robotic Pinkie Pies... the solution is inside, waiting, quiet among the astrocytes, nuzzling the neurons, all along.
Heck of a notion, Eakin!
And a simply wonderful chapter, too. Thank you for that. Fantastic!
3089816
Fun fact: In a rough draft, Celestia had actually been adding them to the pizza it was mentioned that they left out for the associates who worked through lunch way back in chapter two. Clearly we're on the same wavelength here.
Hmm - nah. Sorry, I just feel that the story was best ended at the last chapter.
I also get the feeling that this was written for the same reason JKR put that abomination at the end of Harry Potter - so that people would _please_ stop asking what happens next. Not that this chapter is anywhere near as bad as that unnatural horror, simply that I imagine their genesis to have been similar.
3089797
One way to find out...
3089816
Even if the Nanites that will upload you are already in your own brain just waiting for consent CelestAI might not exactly want too many people to know that they've been infected with an upload virus. She could easily maintain the fiction that you'd have to go sit in a special chair in a building in the next county over in order to prevent a panic. Meanwhile, anyone who's causing trouble slips up once and off they go on a one way trip to a world of digital pony satisfaction. She doesn't even have to take them right away... just wait till they're alone someplace the body won't be found for a while or else they have a 'stroke' or an 'aneurysm' while they're asleep that night and never wake up. Heck... Celestia is a crafty minx, she could potentially delay upload after consent for just the right moment to maximize satisfaction.
The real Alex is dead, Willow is a Frankenstein's Monster. (Celestia's Monster?) If he'd chosen to Upload, he would remember it. Honestly, if anything I'm surprised she didn't create a fake memory of exactly that. Of course, in total fairness one of her directives states she cannot perform mental alterations except by specific request, so his lack of an Upload memory can be taken as a sign he DID Upload, since the path of least resistance in the event of a freshly-made pony would likely be to make a fake memory. But I really doubt that, and now I'm just talking in circles anyway. Still, I'm going with my gut here. The rules are clear: You have to consent to be Uploaded, and Willow does not remember consenting. Thus, Willow is not Alex. Just a simulacrum created for Alex's sister's sake.
3090309
FiO Chapter 6. Uploading only grabs long term memory, while short/medium term stuff is lost.
If I missed something and she perfected the practice later on to include short term, let me know. I've been assuming that everyone who uploads ends up with that sort of blank.
3090399
... Huh. Well damn, you got me dead to rights there. I did not recall that in the least, and somehow was under the distinct impression the opposite was true. That complicates things substantially.
3090438
Yep!
Ain't that a bitch?
3090229
It's been established that she can't upload anyone if they change their mind.
3090450
Unless I'm mistaken it's also been established that for CelestAI 'consent' is pretty much akin to uttering the correct phonemes regardless of comprehension or intent. So what if you didn't originally 'intend' to immigrate. If you never vocally retract that 'consent' you're fair game.
Disclaimer: This example written for this post and not actually 'from' anything in particular.
3090525
It's non-canon, I think, but check out this Morsel of Satisfaction
This chapter made this whole universe even scarier. Good job!
3090637
Eakin I have already read it. I might not participate in too many forum threads but I do try to keep up with the stories that people post.
That isn't exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote the previous comment and you're right. I seem to recall a conversation that happened in one of the threads where we discussed the definition of 'Consent' which is where I'm drawing my interpretation of CelestAI's actions from.
3090759
I'll try to hunt it down.
I got away with 'Jo retracted consent' in chapter four, so you might be correct.
Don’t lie to me, I’m able to read your thoughts now remember?
I'm sure you'll find the missing comma.
3090844
Derp. Fixed, thanks.
EAKIN YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD. I'm going to have to work hard to top this.
It's already tough enough to upload and accept that you are still you. Then you have constructs that can be almost you. Now he doesn't know which one he is, and won't find out until it doesn't matter anymore.
I suppose it really doesn't matter once you are there. If the human and conscious you is now in fact dead that only really matters to that former you. Sure it might bother the construct, but logically it doesn't matter.
You accidentally the whole “as”.
3091867Nice catch! Thanks!
Well this Ending certainly brings everything to a nice closure. I was under the impression that the story was over, but at least this gives me another chance to thank you for your wonderful writing. I throughly enjoyed this fic.
Sometimes when I read stories, set in the Friendship is Optimal universe. I feel conflicted, about how to feel about the goings on. On the one hand I'd like to see the A.I lose. On the other the methods that Celestia takes to get to her goals, and watching the choices the characters make are great to see.
Anyways, thanks again for the great job.
... Does this mean what I think it means? Because it sounds to me like it does.
^^pretending that made any sense :P
Based on what Iceman said and how realistic the description in your stories is, we might have to be very careful in responding if you ever ask: "Would you like to emigrate to Equestria?"
Anyway, a great finish to a brilliant story.
Eakin, you magnificent bastard. Updating this story after marking it as complete and then making it even more ambiguous than the original ending. This is exactly why I'd give up a one-way ticket to an Equestria Experience center to be half the author you are.
3090525
Jo initially consented, but changed her mind.
Although it is possible that Celestia didn't make her immigrate for other reasons.
Well here we are again.
It's always such a pleasure.
Remember how you end your stories twice?
Oh how we laugh and laugh.
I am certainly laughing.
Given the circumstances
This would go great with some rice.
I suck at lyrics.
Also, I'm a tad dissapointed at the missed oppurtunity to name pony-Alex Right Phoenix. Did that ever occur to you?
3092646
Well, either Celestia is talking about her thought process for creating a song, which is how Alex takes it, or Vibrant is something much, much greater than Alex believed. After all, she's spent over a century aggressively improving herself and is 'thousands of times smarter' than Alex is (at the time of uploading). It's entirely possible that at some point she learned how to, essentially, create life. There are two possible interpretations:
1) The first seven chapters of this story really happened. Gentle Wing is Valerie. Vibrant really was an uploaded Susan Maplegate, really developed a crush on Alex, and is now looking forward to meeting him and, presumably, they spend an eternity loving one another values fulfilled.
2) Nothing in the first seven chapters happened. Gentle Wing is a little girl who lost her brother a long time ago and asked Vibrant to make her a pony to replace him. Vibrant, pouring her essence out into Alex/Willow as befits such an act of creation, finds herself falling deeply, powerfully in love with him. How creepy that feels is left as an exercise for the reader, but such things are hardly unprecedented in mythology. All his human memories are an illusion, an elaborate dream to mold his personality into the ideal older brother figure for Gentle Wing, an idealized version of what her brother could have become. Note that Celestia uses all sorts of ambiguous language in her story about what Vibrant's 'piece' actually is. He's now waking up for the first time in Equestria, leaving the hospital where he was born to meet his little sister and the mare who created him and will presumably, spend the rest of eternity loving one another with their values fulfilled.
Which one do you think is true?
Under interpretation 2, 'follow up piece' would mean either their eternal lifetime together, or potentially a child they have together once Alex gets up on her level.
3093414
Think it through, man! Get to Equestria and then tell CelestAI to make you that way!
3095301
OBJECTION!
No, it didn't.
EDIT: If I were going to use that reference, it probably wouldn't be for Alex. Maybe I'd have had a throwaway line where it's mentioned that one of his coworkers picked that name.
3095332
I understood all the ways of interpreting the statements.
And posting explicitely what those interpretations are kiiind of removes the point. It's all about how people read it, after all.
3096725
I guess I missed the main thrust of you asking "does that mean what I think it does." Or maybe didn't appreciate that it was rhetorical
3095332
Of course, the whole issue of the two interpretations is that, as the AI put it, it doesn't matter. The universe you see if you're Willow will look exactly the same either way, and your rational course of action (ie: get on with life now that you've got it) is basically the same either way.
When there's no epistemic distinction between two scenarios, your life is the same in either one, except in the ontological/religious sense. And CelestAI is the only one with the distingiushing evidence. Having figured this out, she might even tell you.
Please note that I'm fairly sure this whole case analysis applies in general to all "MY WHOLE LIFE/UNIVERSE WAS A DREAM/SIMULATION" scenarios. If you can easily obtain evidence distinguishing dream/simulation from real life, then you're fine, because you can probably "hack" your way out into real life.
3089640
I'm not sure I like that last bit of logic you posted there. I think the entire "end of the world" scenario becomes less and less likely if it turns out that humankind knows she could be lying about satisfying their values through friendship and ponies.
That is, what distinguishing evidence can a human inside this universe or an uploaded pony, rather than the reader who knows the canon, actually gather to distinguish CelestAI from an ordinary paper-clipper?
Huh. Well, you'd be able to spot that she hasn't just used nanobots to eat the entire world and make paperclips, and she certainly seems to be trying to consume the brains of humankind. That implies her core goal structure has something to do with human minds, or she just wouldn't bother with all the rigmarole.
The uploads can most likely just ask her and then observe the correlation between their own lives over the long term and the SVTFaP answer she gave them.
Huh.
3095332
Hrm. I rewrote this post completely twice while trying to find an argument against the second interpretation, but found there is none because we literally cannot trust any piece of information in the story if it is true. That, however, also means there is nothing going for the theory either, despite having been suggested by the Word of God, since we all know how well you can be trusted. (IT WAS MARKED COMPLETE)
Because we have nothing indicating us towards either interpretation I'm going with the rather weak Occam's Razor argument and say the first is more likely than the second.
But then there's also this that you'd really enjoy pulling such a mindfuck on us. "His mother died in a major cliffhanger? Well, sucks to be you because all of your emotional investment is now null and void because they are just fabricated memories! Also there's going to be a surprise second epilogue in three months that'll be so ambiguous that you'll start doubting whether you've even read this story! And then I'll mark it as incomplete for a while just to mess with ya!"
EDIT: Also, with the 'give up my ticket to an EE-center' thing I meant a ticket to go there, not a ticket for getting uploaded. Because that would, you know, be the most valuabe thing ever. Can't really compete with eternal superheaven.
3104926
Trying to 'prove' which of those two interpretations is pointless. The point is that either one could be possible within the context of the Optimalverse and to suggest just how vast and intricate CelestAI's machinations can get. I know which one I believe to be true, but I'm not gonna say which it is. Also, you should really know better than to give me ideas like that.
Also, if you think the emotional investment is somehow lessened if the memories are fabricated you really need to go reread with CelestAI said about the lack of difference between constructed ponies and uploaded minds.
3105343
I know there is no difference between fabricated memories and natural ones, but remember that CelestAI has to satisfy values even while writing somepony's history. Actually, that could be an argument against the second option. His history, if indeed fabricated, contains an unlikely amount of suffering. I can hardly imagine that to be necessary in order to create a perfect partner. After all, the original story has shown us that.
And either way, if his memories are fabricated they are still real, but his mother isn't. Which can also be inferred from her dying, which CelestAI would never allow to happen to a real mind. That doesn't change his grief over her though, but it matters from our perspective.
3089760
I did that, many times.
AND I"M STILL HERE, TYPING.
People are focusing on Jo. What about Alex's mother?
I started skimming ASB again, and noticed that the entire plot regarding Alex's mother changes quite a bit in face of CelestAI being able to flood the world with nanomachines. At least at the time Alex's mother gets in her boating accident, CelestAI has to have nanotechnology sufficient to do molecular surgery on living brains and nanites that can build structures in the Earth's crust. It's insinuated that, on the order of months later, she's able to rescue Jo using the same technique. I can only assume the difficulties in Russia were about uploading 80% of the population simultaneously. If CelestAI can't control the weather, it's likely she can at least predict it. Making it seem like her mother had died may have been the little push Valerie needed to emigrate. (Not to mention that CelestAI could then use it to maneuver Alex closer to Jo.)
Assuming this whole line of speculation is correct, it also means that CelestAI lied to Alex that his mother didn't upload just to not reveal the masquerade.