13. But From Their Silence
I.D. INJECTOR DOE
That Indestructible Something
By Chatoyance
═════════════════════
13. But From Their Silence
"Now the sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song,
namely their silence...
someone might have escaped from their singing;
but from their silence, certainly never."
- Franz Kafka
The shiny black truck with the green apple on the side entered the multistory parking garage and drove to the third level. It parked next to a black 1965 Ford Econoline van, which had no markings at all.
The artificial voice of Mr. Malus Crown spoke to the two mares. "Please cooperate fully with my team, and remember that they cannot see you as you truly are. They do not comprehend that you have been transformed, they will refer to that circumstance ambiguously as 'The Event'. Answer all questions as accurately as you can, your own survival could very well depend on it. If all goes well, you will be transported to my compound, and we shall meet in the flesh."
The rear doors of the custom transport truck suddenly opened and Gregoria and Rachel found themselves in a swirl of activity. Two men entered, one tall and blond, the other shorter and dark of hair and complexion. "Hello! Mr. Crown has told you what we're doing here, correct?"
Rachel nodded. "Yes."
"While you are being scanned, I need to ask you both some questions. Please answer completely and honestly to the best of your ability." The shorter man had brought a case of electronic equipment. While the taller man flipped pages on his iPad with a finger, the shorter man began running a paddle-like device over every contour of Rachel and Gregoria's bodies as they lay on their padded benches.
"First, have you seen a doctor, gone to a dentist, or sought the services of any medical, cosmetic, or other bodily care services since the 'Event'?" The tall man read from his iPad while the shorter man changed his paddle for a cylinder-shaped sensor.
"No. We just kind of hid out, mostly. We went to get food, but that's it." Gregoria lifted her right foreleg so the short man could scan her chest.
The tall man looked at Rachel.
"No, nothing like that." Rachel looked at Gregoria and shrugged with her ears.
The tall man moved his finger slightly. "Since the 'Event', have you experienced any form of blackout, loss of awareness, loss of time, or unexplained feelings of grogginess or forgetfulness?"
Both Gregoria and Rachel shook their heads. The short man had moved on to something that looked like a supermarket barcode scanner now. He worked quickly.
"Okay... since the 'Event', have you noticed anything within your apartment, home or dwelling that seemed to have been moved without explanation, or anything which was noticeably out of place? Has there been any sign of new construction or alteration of walls, ceiling, floor, tables, room corners, mirrors or ventilation gratings?"
"You're kidding, right?" Gregoria found the questions bizarre.
"No sir. At least not until that computer was left on our table." The tall man seemed uncertain, so Rachel continued. "Mr. Crown left us a computer. It's how he contacted us." This seemed to satisfy the blond man.
"Since the 'Event', have you discovered or felt any unexplained or unusual bumps, lumps, soreness, cuts, rashes, or injuries of any kind on, or inside your bodies, especially after waking up following a sleep cycle?" The tall man studied their faces, while the short man finished a last scan with a tool that resembled a strange inverted cone.
"Um... no. If anything, I've felt really healthy." Gregoria grinned at Rachel. "Healthy as a horse, right Rache?"
Rachel frowned at that and gave Gregoria a harsh look. "Nothing like that. Nothing I can think of."
"They're clean." The short man was busy rapidly packing up his devices. In an instant his case was shut and he was out of the custom transport truck, leaving them alone with the tall, blond man.
"Alright. Last question." The tall man looked briefly at his pad. Then he whispered "Majestic Majik Umbra. Eisenhower saw dark sunglasses. We are among friends."
Rachel looked at Gregoria. Gregoria looked at Rachel then back to the tall man. Gregoria giggled. The tall man seemed to be waiting for something. Finally, Gregoria stared at Rachel with an exasperated look on her face. "Is this really worth it? I mean, seriously? Rachel?"
The tall man was still waiting.
Rachel turned to the tall man. "Honest. I don't have a clue what to say to that."
"Good enough." The tall, blond man backed out of the van and stood on the cement outside. "Outside. Quickly. Into the van over here, fast as you can." He gestured to their left, beyond the back of the fancy transport.
Gregoria and Rachel clambered out of the shiny black truck and were hurried into the fairly beat-up Econoline. The doors were slammed shut as soon as they were inside, and they barely had time to fold their legs and lay down properly on the bare foam pad that covered the floor before the van accelerated away.
They could see nothing out of the sides or back of the windowless vehicle, but to the front they noted a man and a woman sitting in the seats. As the Ford van drove around and around the down ramp to get to the exit of the parking garage, the woman turned partially about and Rachel felt slightly relieved that she recognized her. It was Nadzieja, who had spoken to them over Crown's 'present'.
"Hello again. It is good to meet in the person. We are traveling to the 'secret hideout' now, just like in the movies! Is very exciting, I am sure. Do not fear, Thibault here was once semi-professional race car driver. Try to be comfortable, journey is long but there will be stops and one more change of car. Welcome aboard!" Nadzieja smiled, and turned away again, and immediately began talking on a cell phone to someone.
Gregoria and Rachel huddled together. The ride was not smooth like the fancy truck had been, and there were disconcerting bumps and jolts. Neither could think of anything to say, so they ended up laying fully down, back to back, and dozing.
It was dark when they were fed, watered and allowed to go to the toilet. Nadzieja followed them in, and kept an eye on them at all times. When they returned it was to a new car, another van, but of a make and model neither knew, though Gregoria thought it was a Volkswagon of some kind. For a while, the two friends talked with each other about television programs - but deliberately not My Little Pony - and Nadzieja asked if they would like the radio on. Eventually Rachel and Gregoria fell asleep again, bored, road weary, and unable to think of any other way to pass the time.
After two more stops, assorted snacks and beverages, and more dozing, they were awakened. They were led out of the vehicle to a meadow of grass, surrounded by trees. This was the first time either of the two mares had felt grass and soil beneath their hooves. The smell of it made their stomachs rumble, and their saliva flow. It was twilight, the sun was just setting, and Rachel noted that she could hear insects, probably crickets, in the distance.
They were led through a gate in a long, solid wall, and then down a cobblestone path to a large and rambling ranch house with a midsection A frame. To the side was a classic red barn, and both Rachel and Gregoria could smell hay and working farm in the air.
Dinner was delicious, though Mr. Crown did not attend. They were left alone, after the food was served, which Gregoria thought was a great thing - she didn't have to pretend to eat like a human, and could just stick her muzzle in her bowls with abandon.
The meal featured a delicious vegetarian Avgolemono soup, beside broiled slices of potato seasoned with spices, and a very fresh hummus which they decided to dip the slices in. There was a savory red lentil dish with tomatoes and basil, and large bowls of what appeared, at first, to be oatmeal, but was instead an amazing mixture of lightly spiced mixed grains over a bed of garlic fried hay. Neither Gregoria or Rachel had ever imagined that pony food could be so elaborate or delicious.
"This is better than I imagined Bureau food to be! Sweet Luna, Mr. Crown puts on the feedbag doesn't he?" Rachel was burping happily, the quantity they had been given was prodigious. Crown clearly understood how much a Celestia-sized pony would need to feel full.
"He's rich. But... cinnamon muffins, Rache... I could eat like this for the rest of my life, easy." Gregoria felt over full, but it had been totally worth it. "Of course, I would end up super fat. Any fat ponies on the show?"
Rachel pondered for a bit. "Maybe. I can't remember. Probably."
"That'll be me, if this is typical. Wow." Gregoria took a careful sip of cider. There had been cider with the meal.
"Mr Crown would like to see you now." Nadzieja was at the door to the large dining room. Gregoria and Rachel managed to get up from the large, padded benches they had enjoyed reclining on, and waddled behind her, through several areas of the house.
The room was large, with a high ceiling. The walls were partially covered in acoustic foam, like a recording booth. There were multiple work stations with chairs, with iMacs and other iDevices on them. One recessed area of the room formed a small theater-like enclosure, dark with a truly gigantic screen at the back. In front of the screen was a large white sphere on a pedestal. Rachel, ever the science fiction fan, instantly recognized it - it was a replica of an Eero Aarnio ball chair. It was turned, facing away, and Rachel was instantly jealous of it.
"Please wait here. Mr. Crown will address you. Be good girls now." Gregoria stuck her tongue out at Nadzieja's back as she left, and snorted at her comment.
The recorded sound of Rachel's voice filled the room, once the door had been shut - and as both mares exquisite hearing noted - locked.
"I'm not Celestia! I may look like Celestia, but I'm not her. I can't raise the sun, I don't have the secrets of ponification, I can't send anypony to the moon. I just got stuck with Celestia's body. Don't expect any miracles."
"Is this still true?" It came from inside the ball chair. The voice was very strange. It did not sound human. It did not sound entirely male, but neither did it sound female. It had a faint hiss to it, an almost malevolent quality, yet also oddly vulnerable.
Gregoria and Rachel looked at each other. If this was the voice of Mr. Crown, they had no idea what to make of him. Rachel finally replied. "Yes. I am not Celestia. I may look like her, but I'm still me inside. Mostly. I can feel something different, but I guess it's just part of being a pony. But I am not Celestia, I only look like her."
"The griffon was not a real griffon, he was a man shaped like a griffon. The Elf was not really Elrond, he was a man, who just ended up looking like an elf. There are instincts..." The ball shifted, but did not turn around. "... that change us in some ways, but you would agree that despite that, we remain ourselves?"
The voice of Mr. Crown was haunting and weird. Gregoria felt a slight shiver run down her withers. "I... at first, I wondered if I was still me. Stuff did change in me. I have a pony brain in here now, and it... it makes me different. But I'm me. I'm a little different, maybe even for the better but... I'm me, and Rachel is still... um... Rachel."
There was an awkward silence, then the eerie voice spoke again from within the ball chair. "Man cannot live without a permanent trust in something indestructible within himself, though both that indestructible something and his own trust in it may remain permanently concealed from him." Another pause. "Franz Kafka. I have a very great interest in Franz Kafka. You will understand why, shortly. Do you know who he is?"
Gregoria shook her head. "No. Some mad scientist?"
The strange voice had an even stranger laugh. "Perhaps, in a way. He was a writer, during the early twentieth century. He was also... a Changeling."
"A what?" Rachel knew very well what Crown meant, she just couldn't accept what he had said.
The giant screen lit up and displayed photographs, one after another. The images were of an opened grave, with an old casket, the lid was off. Inside the casket, shriveled and dry, lay the body of a very real, very dead My Little Pony Changeling.
"Franz Kafka died - supposedly of laryngeal tuberculosis - though I suspect it was from a lack of positive emotional energy - in the June of nineteen-twenty four. I cannot be sure just when in his life he transformed, but he was not always a Changeling, I am certain of that. He had no basis to understand what he had become. My Little Pony would not be created for almost a century, and there is nothing quite like the appearance of the pony Changeling in any ancient culture. The best he could describe his new form was as a "monstrous vermin". He used that very phrase in a story he wrote about a man metamorphosing into an inhuman creature.
"It was not just a story. It was nearly autobiographical. Miss Priss, Miss Samson - Franz Kafka spent the rest of his life in the body of a Changeling. He had lovers, he wrote books. More than a few called him an angel - he was kind, honest, deeply compassionate. You are ponies, but you are still you. Franz Kafka was a Changeling, but he was not an evil monster. He was still himself. Understanding that, I am trusting you to understand... me."
The Eero Aarnio ball chair rotated on its base, and the open side began to show. Inside the ball sat something green, and black, horned and winged. It was the inverse of an alicorn, a Dark Side opposite to Celestia. Mr. Malus Crown was a Changeling, a Changeling king.
My Little Pony had never shown a male Changeling, only possibly sexless drones and Chrysalis, the horrific and villainous Changeling queen. Crown had not become the character of Chrysalis. He had become a king, or a prince Changeling, something likely out of a fanfiction. His eyes glowed green, and his appearance was dark, frightening, and insectoid - roughly alicorn-shaped, but with nightmarish swiss-cheese hollows through his pitch-black legs and twisted horn. His sickly green, angular wings were insect wings; membranous and striated.
"Sweet Celestia." Gregoria felt weak in all four knees. The fanged horror in the ball chair blinked at her, two green lights flashing on and off. "Sweet, eternal Celestia."
The strange voice clearly belonged to the creature in the chair. "I had to be very careful with our... introduction. You are not the only functioning Equestrians I have discovered, and I lost one to incaution on my part. I did not want to lose you, as I did her."
"What, did she flee in terror?" Gregoria was still very doubtful about the monster in front of her. She was afraid to look it in the eye. Chrysalis had been one of the few characters that had caught her attention, and she remembered the episode very clearly.
"Yes, she did." Crown looked at the floor between them. "She thought me a real Changeling, evil, like in the cartoon. She could not separate fantasy and reality. She ran away, and they found her. It cost me my last, larger compound, and I was nearly captured myself. It was a catastrophe."
"They?" Rachel remembered Crown had mentioned there was a threat of some kind out there.
"My Little Pony, Tolkien, Oz, the Roman and Greek gods - transformations have been happening for as long as man has existed. There are cave paintings of humans with animal heads - I believe they were changed people, just like us. Such a thing, even if rare, becomes noticed miss Priss. There are government - and independent - agencies devoted to capturing, containing, and using people like us. We often have powers, you may have noticed. That makes us either dangerous, or useful, and in the deadly and cruel games of those who rule, you never want to be either."
Gregoria almost choked. "Wait. You mean... there really are X-Files people, the SCP Foundation exists, there are really secret bases with cages and..."
"Yes, miss Samson. That and more. There are hangers with flying saucers in them, and little gray aliens - only those aliens are people, just like ourselves, changed. Changed into something someone believed in with all of their heart and mind, someone who became an anonymous John Doe Injector." Malus' horn glowed, and across the room a small fridge opened. A bottle of fruit juice glowed and floated out. "Care for some juice? Bottled water? Iced tea? I feel thirsty."
Gregoria was a little nervous accepting her bottle of Lipton from the magic of a Changeling, but she kept reminding herself that Rachel was not really Celestia, thus Crown was not a real Changeling.
"Mr. Crown - that's not your original name, is it? You're very, very wealthy. You must have been someone, before you went into hiding. Who are you... really?" Rachel was looking around the room, at all the iMacs and iPads and iPods and iPhones. There was hardly a single device that was not built by Apple. This creature - this man - seemed to be very at home with computers, and the terms he sometimes used...
"Ah. I suppose it doesn't really matter if you know. Even if you left, and were captured, you would not be believed." The Changeling king sipped his juice. It was apple juice. "Before I arranged my... exit... I was a captain of industry. A leader among men. I was an entrepreneur. I miss my old life. I surround myself with bits of it. I suppose you could..."
"Malus... 'apple'. Crown. A king wears a crown - the king of apples!" Rachel felt very smart indeed. "You... you're Steve Jobs! ...or ... you were."
"You are very quick, miss Priss. Yes, that is who I was. But I changed, about seven years before My Little Pony went on the air. I became... erratic ...from the trauma. I moved in some ...exclusive circles, and I was found out. It was partly my fault - I was looking for answers. I arranged my 'death' - it was surprisingly easy, because I have certain abilities native to my Changling body. I can make others believe whatever I wish, to a point. Actually..." The creature in the chair chuckled "...I suppose that was true before my transformation. I guess nothing new, just more and better." The smile bared pointy, vampire-like teeth. Gregoria involuntarily shivered. Crown - Jobs - couldn't help being creepy.
Gregoria and Rachel settled down with juices, tea and water. Rachel sipped her bottled water and set it down. "So, the world, the universe... it's a Bostrom Simulation, isn't it?"
"A what?" Gregoria did not want to be left out of things at this point. She wanted to know what was going on, and above all else, how to fix it.
Malus Crown - it was easier to think of him as that, they had known him by that name longer, and his old life and identity was, after all, officially dead - cleared his throat. "Ah, miss Priss. So clever." He took another sip of his juice. "Miss Samson, if your friend will indulge me, I will explain."
Rachel nodded.
"Miss Samson, surely you've seen The Matrix, correct?" Gregoria grinned and assented. She had loved that movie before she had become a pony. Now, probably, the violence would render it unwatchable. "So you are familiar with the concept that one day we may be able to create simulated worlds so perfect that they cannot be distinguished from reality? Good."
"So we're all living in the Matrix, the Matrix is real?" Gregoria was almost thrilled at the prospect.
"Not exactly. Not the Matrix. We're not batteries for machine intelligences - that was just stupid - and we are not alive in tanks of goo somewhere. But we are inside of a virtual reality, a simulation of reality, and we... are programs. We are characters in a big video game. We are the machine intelligences."
"What? We're robots now?" This was cool, but also creepy, and Gregoria didn't like the notion as well as the thought of the Matrix being real.
"No, miss Samson. We are not... robots. Robots are physical machines, we have no physical existence. We are constructions of code, we are sprites on the game screen. You, me, everyone that truly thinks - and not all of the observable human race is actually really there - are nothing but information, running on a system beyond anything we currently know." The Changling shifted in the ball, and adjusted its wings.
"It isn't the entire universe, by the way. I have... inside knowledge ...from those rarefied circles I once ran in. Voyager One, the first probe to leave our solar system, as well as every other probe, has encountered the 'edge of the screen' if you like. It's been covered up, there are secret satellites up there just to feed scientists comfortable lies. It ends, the universe is a false backdrop, very detailed, but ultimately just a skybox. That's the answer to Fermi's Paradox, by the way. We are alone. Entirely alone, in a simulated solar system with a fake skybox for a universe." Crown used his magic to bring more juice for himself, and tea and water for Gregoria and Rachel.
"So... we're all characters in a video game, the universe isn't there, what's the point? Who's behind it all?" Gregoria had Rachel open her second bottle of Lipton. It was pretty crappy iced tea, but Gregoria didn't want juice or plain water.
"The Simulation Argument. Sorry. There is this clever professor at Oxford, Nick Bostrom. He came up with a bit of reasoning that cannot be refuted - but in theory, it could be proven. In fact, it has been proven, though only a select few know this. Not even Nick himself knows the truth. His argument involves three propositions, and one of the three has to be true. The propositions are that, first, humanity will die off, completely, before it can go 'posthuman'. What I mean is that the human race will go extinct before it can make technology so powerful that it becomes possible to upload human minds into virtual reality worlds, where they can live potentially forever. So that's the first argument, that we all die before we can become immortal computer minds.
"The second proposition is that if humanity actually does make it to the point where they can upload their minds into virtual worlds and live forever as emulated beings, absolutely nobody will ever want to play 'Sim City' anymore, or play 'Civilization' ever again, or in general want to run a simulation of history, of the past, to see what it was like."
Gregoria interrupted. "That's dumb! We play things like that now, I've played things like that. Of course we'll still want to play with history and stuff, even on holodecks or whatever!"
"More than holodecks, miss Samson. We are speaking of humans actually becoming emulated minds, and completely living inside computer generated realities. We would be the holograms, if you like."
"Um... that's what I meant." Gregoria swirled her iced tea with small movements of her pasterns. "What's the third one?"
"The third proposition is that if we don't kill ourselves off, and we still enjoy simulations of history, then it is utterly statistically likely that we must be living in a simulation right now. The reasoning for this is simple - if the human race uploads in the future, and starts running simulations - playing games - then some percentage of those billions are going to be running our world as it is right now. Even if only a few hundred thousand wanted to play 'Earth: The Game', that still means hundreds of thousands of copies of our world, which means hundreds of thousands of chances to one that you are a character and not a real person living before all the simulations happened."
"Huh?"
"Let me put it this way - there is only one original world. One real earth, before the Singularity. That's one chance. But, after the Singularity, there could be hundreds of thousands, even millions of copies of 'Earth' being simulated, each with billions of simulated people in it. That's billions or even trillions of chances that you are a simulated person, and only one chance in all of those billions or trillions that you are a meat person before the Singularity. It's a trillion to one shot that you are flesh and blood. Do you understand?"
Gregoria's mind spun. She tried to refute the argument. She tried to break it, but she couldn't. If humans ever got to the point of making simulations of reality, of course they would play history games. They do now. History is always important and interesting. Renaissance faires, reenactment groups, war gamers, history buffs - historians! They'd run history sims, no question.
And if they did, there would be a lot of copies. How many copies did Sim City sell? How many people played Civilization? Or Age Of Empires, or Assassins Creed, or Red Dead Redemption, or... there were a LOT of history games. Each game would simulate the lives of all the people in the world. Billions of people. Billions of chances you are a program, only one, single chance you are flesh and blood.
"And this is real? It's been proven?" Gregoria felt dizzy.
Malus Crown spun like a child, slowly, in his ball chair. "Yes. Voyager. Pioneer, edge of the simulation. And more, too, there are hints all over, if you know what to look for. It's been thoroughly proven. And kept quiet. It keeps itself quiet, actually. Maybe it's part of the simulation that this is the case, but I think it's just that most people don't want to accept it. It's just not something they even want to know."
"So why are we ponies, then, mister Crown? And what does my Rick have to do with all of this?" Rachel set her water down and stared intently at the Changeling in the chair.
"In the big computer - it's more than any computer we understand, it's probably more than we actually CAN understand, I suspect there is something like a corrupted pointer caused by a buffer overrun. Or an uninitialized pointer. Could be a corrupted stack, if the thing even uses stacks as we know them. Stack overflow. There's a bug in the program, miss Priss, and sometimes, when things get too complicated or too overwhelming for emulated human minds - as in war, or natural disasters, or plagues, or any desperate, extreme circumstance - the bug strikes. The pointer starts writing somewhere it shouldn't.
"The result is that things change. I think they change based on certain human minds that effectively inject code into the running program of the simulated earth. John or Jane Does, we can generally never hope to know who they are or were, whose dearest dreams or beliefs or thoughts are read as instructions for the generation of reality. Or at least for some aspects of reality. I believe your lover, Private First Class Richard Deckard, was just such a code injector. Those that chase people like us certainly think so."
"Why, why do these people think this? Is there something about Rick?" Rachel trembled at the memory of her beloved.
"One of his friends, several of the people with him, saw it happen. They aren't with us anymore - I don't know if they have been tucked away, or just killed outright, but they are not available anymore. Their reports though, are consistent - when mister Deckard's vehicle ran over that device, it was destroyed, but Richard, Richard somehow became a buffer overrun. His last thoughts were almost certainly read as the code for defining aspects of our simulation. And as it always happens with this bug, it spreads, affecting reality randomly.
"Imagine a pebble, tossed into a pond. It goes 'Bloop!' and ripples radiate out in all directions. Now try to think of a video game, one that has a story, like a role-playing game. The story has a beginning and an end, it has events that must be triggered in sequence, it has a predetermined script that represents the story, the history of the game narrative. Playing the game, you, as a player, have free will to the extent that you can make choices about your character, you can choose this armor or that sword, you can do the side quest or not bother. But the overall story is fixed. So are certain key characters, who you meet in a specific order.
"When a code injection occurs, the effect ripples through the living code of our reality. It affects objects and elements in the 'game' from the start of the simulation to the end. Randomly, things become corrupted, the pointers change so that when elements are 'drawn to the screen' they might look differently, or have different stats. Things get altered in the narrative future, and the past, randomly. The degree of change might be small, or total. People who are changed might end up as anything... even a pony from a cartoon show, as described in the fragments of a man's dying mind."
Rachel was in tears now, crying, her water bottle tipped to the side, the water spreading across the floor.
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....
Huh.
....
*brain explodes*
Ooo-kay, I was wrong about almost understanding. This just went off in a completely different direction than I expected. I guess I'm just along for the ride, now.
Edit: Though this does say interesting things about the moral system (or lack thereof) the Programmers have, given that creating a crappy world full of unhappy moral agents is considered an acceptable form of [whatever they're doing].
And BAM! Out of nowhere, Steve friggin' Jobs.
Clever. None of the elements are new per se, but it's a very interesting combination.
The only weak point in the narrative I can find is that after the singularity programs would write the new programs. Errors would be found and removed quite fast.
At least I hope so.
On the other hand, it would be the coolest explanation for losing socks in the washing-machine.
Or maybe we're simply lower on the totem pole.
smbc-comics.com/comics/20101109.gif
Wow... Just wow. This has to be the most amazing twist I have ever seen.
25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m453nzOScy1rvkiiro1_400.gif
Existential crisis, anyone?
"Rachel pondered for a but." I bet here on a bit.
On other news, I called the buggy code bit! Yet I still don't see an explanation why the code injection uses stuff preferably from one particular setting. Also, has been Gregoria affected by the same original cause as Rachel due to her proximity? Celestia needs other ponies as friends, and Greggy might have fit the bill.
Annnndd... You just lost me...
I agree with everyone else that this twist was unexpected and great, but there is one thing wrong with it.
Nobody wants to do that now.
And suddenly everything makes sense.
Now the real question is: can we purposely cause these "stack overflows"?
Tron anyone?
The parallels presented so far are almost the same thing... almost. Maybe closer to tron with a dab of the matrix.
Though I would lean more towards "the computer" as being a living (not necessarily breathing) organism. A completely biological computer,.. Such a thing would have the flexibility to deal with undefined parameters in any given situation and handle it in such a way that it does not cause the whole system to spectacularly crash. This is basically how the human brain works... heck, even large(ish) portions of the brain could all of a sudden go missing and things would still be mostly functional. Over time new connections would be made and things repaired.
A memory "cell" is basically a collection of spark plugs where the shorter the distance the spark has to travel, the better/easier such a memory is to recall. Should the distance get longer, the memory becomes harder to remember, until eventually those 'spark ends' connect up to somewhere else to make some other memory easier to remember... or something.
Anyway, I guess I'm just thinking out loud in the comments section. My theory is that "the computer" is somehow biological in nature, and that the fanfic is more or less analogous to the movie Tron. Not sure if that was intentional or not... *shrug* Still its a good fun read. Waiting for MOAR! (of course)
Cheers
Gee, I wonder what that was like.
The thing that I really like about this is that the bug propagates both forwards and backwards in time, causing situations like Kafka's to fully play out before the bug ever occurred, chronologically. I would imagine that the proximity of those altered to the injector, both in time and circumstance, or however random, follows a more normal distribution, meaning that Kafka's would be a very unlikely case (say, four or five standard deviations). This would mean that it is most likely for those changed to roughly correspond chronologically with the injection, which seems to be the case.
2708705
Not exactly out of nowhere, my good sir. I've seen this coming since "Malus Crown" was introduced. And people called me mad...
I am feeling so vindicated right now!
<ANOMALY_DETECTED>
<...>
<INITIATE_ACTION:_SCP_PROTOCOL;_1012?_Y/N?>
<Y>
<ERROR_SYS_FAILURE>
<QUERY_DIAGNOSE_ERROR?>
<ERROR_CRITICAL_REALITY_FAILURE>
Oh... Well then.
Ho. Lee. Crap.
That is AWESOME! Especially from a metatextual standpoint. After all, they are all just aspects of a grand simulation, namely, the story itself. And
...
JobsCrown is aware of the fourth wall.This. This right here. This is why I love reading your stuff, Chat. You think in ways I cannot help but admire.
I have no clue where this story is going to go from here, but I'm definitely looking forward to finding out,
Oh, one thing: Crown isn't going to comment on the strange parallel between Gregoria Samson and Gregor Samsa?
I must say, this is quite the interesting turn of events.
Well I'm just going to go curl up in the corner and rock back and forth in fetal position as I question the very nature of my own existence till the next chapter comes around.
Keep up the good work!
If this governmental entity doesn't see fit to round up the loonies, our protagonists may have put themselves in huge danger by meeting up with Mr. Crown. I'm sure the government would focus first on those who would have the ways and means to effect massive change to society, and Mr. Crown would certainly be someling who could do that.
Then again, imagine the collapse of modern society when people realize they're all in a machine and anyone can be changed into a fictional creature at any time because of your dead relation's wishes.
2709301 forget about tron... or don't, I really did not saw that movie...
check out "The 13th floor"
In the paragraph during the meal when Rachel mentions the Bureau, you didn't capitalize Luna's name. That said, a meal description hasn't made my mouth water since Windchaser's "Ten Days".
Well, let's see how deep the rabbit hole goes, shall we?
2709284 I believe that the answer is "Yes; through war, violence, famine, plague, and disaster."
2708972 In the distant future, someone's computer game glitched.
2708760
The issue of error correction is next. It is already accounted for and... well, you'll see.
2708965
FIXED! Thank you, those kind of errors are very hard to find, because spell checkers don't catch them.
2709440
I SOOOO wanted to tell you you were correct, but... I couldn't. Did I at least give you a *cough*? I hope so. You were brill to pick up on that, by the way.
2709903
That dinner, minus the hay and oat mixture, was the dinner one of my spouses made for us over the weekend. It's become one of my favorite meals, and the home made fresh hummus is incredible, nothing like the crap sold in stores. It's wonderful when fresh! And the red lentil was awesome. But the best was the soup... I love that soup. So - I can vouch personally for Rachel and Gregoria's reaction being authentic!
2709301
I've not seen that Tron movie. I loved the visual effects of the original Tron, even though the story was crap, and of course the music - Wendy Carlos is an absolute inspiration to me, and a brilliant artist.
The follow up, new Tron though left me utterly cold from the first image I saw. It looked like it would be just as empty as the first Tron, only without the unique and astonishing visual and audio style. And from the short, disappointing clips I have seen, I have no interest in what Disney (the bastards!) have screwed up this time. I despise post-Walt Disney. Deeeespiiiiissssse.
But, as may be.
Yay, another post-singularity fic... except this time starting inside rather than outside the simulation. I kinda thought you might have been going somewhere like this.
2710002
Heh... I'm not saying the movie was any good.. It was just the first thing that I thought of when I finished reading this chapter. There does seem to be some parallels between the movie and what has been presented in this fanfic so far.
Then the next thing I thought of was that biological computer housing the whole simulation thing. This I really do hope is the case here, as it would fit in the whole 'creative exception handling' thing very well. That is really the whole point in even wanting a biological computer... for things like creative exception handling and missing or incompatible inputs (which are all part of the general 'exception' category). There is research going on for such a thing, but its very slow going... (micro)biology right now is probably the least understood thing in existence.
OK, I friggin knew he was a changeling, but Steve Jobs? Now THAT one caught me. And then this Matrix shit?
Damn. I think this is deserving of this pic:
imageshack.us/a/img37/5394/twistwhatathwist.jpg
Also, this:
Haha, I used to wonder about that skybox "planetarium hypothesis" when I was a little kid, as a solution to Fermi's paradox. I was really surprised to recently find out it had a name.
Of course, the simulation argument assumes the point of view you have of reality is completely random, in a kind of John Rawls fashion, in which case you could use the same logic to say you'd be almost certain to enter life as a rabidly self-replicating Von Neumann probe in the outside world, or to be in the simulation of a civilization with a much higher population density than present-day Earth (Some planet like Asimov's Trantor, or some kind of hive creature, say), or to be an immortal posthuman waiting for heat death because that's what would spend the largest amount of time conscious, and on and on. I still love anthropic reasoning in general, though.
In this case, however, if there's already that much of a gap in the program, hopefully there's a way to hijack fabrication machines on the outside and build bodies to escape in
I'm also eager to hear how it is that it's so difficult for others to perceive that transformation... Especially since people from the same fictional universe can see each other fine...
Language, young ladies!
2710185
FIXED!
2710267
Yeah, I know. Following the virtual particle, roll the dice instant universe notion, we are all Boltzman Brains anyway. But... you gotta go with something that has decent plot potential, right?
2710002
Now that chapter was explosive! I did not see Jobs coming - probably because I am loathe to use real-world people, but I should have got it from the apple logo if not from his clothes. You sly, sneaky fox!
Regarding the second Tron movie, don't bother. The first one is just geeky enough to be something I love the crap out of, but the second one totally misses the point. If you want to see a movie based on/in/around videogames, go see Wreck-It Ralph.
2709903
...that's actually a pretty nifty idea, that the four (chuckle) ponies of the apocalypse are real, but are entirely different to what we think they are.
2709906
Would this be what the... government agencies responsible for taking them would be? They 'defrag' the system, cleaning up errors, fixing what they can, deleting what they can't? Would that be the explanation behind disappearances?
you know, I am happy that I actually read accelerando, watched tron and matrix, any many other stories like that. now I don't have any biyher problems understanding it, but I can't imagine me understanding this few years ago.
I have no words to describe how much I'm enjoying reading this. This Pinkie will have to do.
Thank you for continuing to write, Chatoyance. I feel very lucky to be able to read your work.
Bravo! Well done. And I love the whole reality distortion field thing - tell me, is Thibault a former Apple employee?
I also used Bostrom's Simulation Hypothesis in 'Mankind Triumphant - Relic'. I hope you'll be providing a backstory for it in this universe.
So the uploaded visual minds of futuristic humans still like to play god?
Okie dokie lokie! I think I need to sleep before I read further, this just got *weird* on me. Still enjoying it though^^
I'm not entirely sure I trust Mr. Crown's story here, especially since I can think of a perfectly good quantum explanation that would actually work for the real world, but I will see where this goes. Note that I don't think he is lying- I am just choosing to believe he doesn't have the full answer either, until the evidence becomes overwhelming. So yes, good night for now! *offers hugs*
Earlier in the story I was like this might be steve jobs, but it better not be steve jobs
I'm not sure that I buy Mr Jobs' explanation but, given his resources and knowledge, it is as good an explanation as any. If I'm reading this right, it means that, at the moment of a violent death, certain random individuals's last consciousness data is being mis-interpreted by the main OS as admin-level instructions about other parts of the simulation. With this in mind, it starts rewriting certain sprites and environmental features.
Where the theory falls down is that it doesn't explain the simulated characters' very close approximation of free will. It also doesn't explain how this could affect things far back in the history of the simulation - Remember that even a simulation will lock off 'past' data-sets from future modification, even if its current information is that those past data-sets have errors in them. Otherwise, there would be cascade errors as each retroactive change creates changes in the current state of the simulation.
One way around this would be that the entire thing, beginning to end, is read-only and consciousness on the part of the characters is an illusion. That way, the simulation becomes more like a book than a simulated world. You can then go back and edit past chapters on the basis of the new, corrupted data set.
There is one last, final option. That Kafka (or, more accurately, his corpse) only turned into a changeling after Mr Jobs had the notion that he could be. In which case, Mr Jobs is a walking, talking code injector himself. You get around the time event by having the MLP races and characters as an available 'patch' skin and environment set for the simulation that are occasionally accessed in glitches. In this event, MLP exists in the objectively 'real' world outside the simulation and someone has been using a variant of the software to run a Virtual Equestria (possibly as a post-grad prank on his/her professors).
4358084
Mmm. But you're thinking too high-level. This isn't about 'admin-access' exacly. Take a look at x86 or another assembly (or binary-level) language.
Many hacks, including OS hacks, basically work exactly like this. What in x86 architecture is the 'esi' pointer, the pointer to the current instruction, is tricked into floating into a section of data that was never meant to represent instructions. It's how hacker-generated code is executed by a system they don't control.
In other words, good work, Mrs. writer.
Oh. So that just happened?
I didn't expect your story to go this way, but I'm very glad it did. I very much enjoy post-singularity fiction. Makes me think.
I'm imagining once again what it must be like to be in Mr. Crown's service and have no idea what's going on.
"Majestic Majik Umbra. Eisenhower saw dark sunglasses. We are among friends."
Hm. Code phrase of the enemy, to see if Gregoria and Rachel respond?
"an amazing mixture of lightly spiced mixed grains over a bed of garlic fried hay. Neither Gregoria or Rachel had ever imagined that pony food could be so elaborate or delicious."
And the chef thinks that Mr. Crown is insane but oh so very well-paying.
"Rachel, ever the science fiction fan, instantly recognized it - it was a replica of an Eero Aarnio ball chair. It was turned, facing away, and Rachel was instantly jealous of it."
…Mr. Crown is going to swivel around as soon as Nadzieja leaves, isn't he? Maybe stroking a puppy? :D
Well, I've gotten the timing wrong, but I can't really fault him for drawing out the drama. :D
Perhaps he's also trying to use the "I am not Celestia, I just look like her" line to lead into "Okay, so I know I look an awful lot like Chrysalis…".
What, no puppy to stroke? :)
I suppose he didn't want the complication.
…Wow. :D
I wasn't expecting that as his identity!
I wonder why people don't see him as that, though?
"I can make others believe whatever I wish, to a point."
Ah.
"it's a Bostrum Simulation, isn't it"
[wikis]
Interesting; I was of course familiar with the idea, but I didn't know the name or origin. Wikipedia seems to spell it "Bostrom", though.
I've heard that the Matrix was originally going to use humans for computing power rather than bioelectricity but that this was for some incomprehensible reason dismissed as implausible.
"There is this clever professor at Oxford, Nick Bostrom."
Ah, so the other one was probably just a simple typo.
And there's the "Injector" in the title!
Well. That was quite the chapter. I'm starting to flag, though, and unfortunately tonight I seem to be getting just the ordinary sort of tiredness rather than the sort that makes me wax philosophical. Goodnight!
…I really was not expecting Steve Jobs. :D
This just got utterly ridiculous.
I LOVE IT!
Aaand now the existential nightmares are back.
¡Mister Steve Jobs lives! The simulated universe is a neat idea, but it would require a computer the size of the universe for simulating the universe. Such a simulation would run slower than real time. A universal simulation would run too slow and require an universe-sized computer. The simulation in this chapter is just barely plausible:
The simulation only goes out to just over 100 Astronomical Units, with the rest of the universe as a backdrop. It would still require huge resources and probably run slower than real time.
Not overly keen on this plot twist... but it works.
... Did Steve Jobs have a terrible temper?