Hmm... I feel this chapter lacks something... I'm not entirely sure what. I think it feels almost as though... Prominence...'s head was messed with a bit more than CelestAI is technically allowed to do. Or, I suppose, he's just exhausted and in shock.
Regardless, I'm looking forward to the next chapter.
This was really cool, though while reading it, the back half of my skull was all hot and tingly from the vicarious sense of injustice and violation. Which is good writing - I actually care about and identify with this Greg fellow and want him to get what he wants.
As for Celestia's test, while it's true he's not just going to let some random kid be eviscerated (presumably there's actually somepony home in there to suffer those events), the stakes are so much lower, and Greg's individual intervention so much less vital, that saving him isn't nearly in the same category of satisfaction. A chef is still going to cook, even in a world with nothing but rice cakes and Ensure, but that doesn't mean he won't miss veal and souffles. He might have actually been able to call her bluff again; I doubt she'd let the foal remember those events afterwards, and she wouldn't snuff out a real, suffering-capable pony she'd gone to the trouble of creating. Though of course Greg was still sort of in shock, the situation was right in front of him instead of hypothetical, and might have been modified such that he wouldn't think of that. It would be sort of a shameful, mercenary thing to do, regardless.
My body knew what to do.
That would be soooo creepy - I don't think I've ever experienced something like that without first consciously drilling it into muscle memory. You know, I wonder if, like the coat of hair thing, CelestAI would allow people to remain mentally unchanged in that sensorimotor respect, so that they could more objectively compare the two forms, and just naturally "break in" the pony one over time.
Hehe, also I recognize those achievements... A large part of what's keeping me from finishing that story, though, is that I have no idea how to resolve that values conflict.
Really interested to see how Greg's first morning here pans out, as well as who he meets...
This chapter rocked mightily - I really enjoyed the night flight, the massage therapists, and the overall feel. This is the sort of thing that makes me a very happy reader indeed. I also liked the name - Prominence is brill - and I enjoyed the descriptive passages that conveyed the experience and sensations of our protagonist.
Two things bothered me slightly - a little much teleporting for my tastes. Why? Abrupt scene changes are video-gamey, which while appropriate enough, somehow seems to conflict with the need to demonstrate to Prominence that his world, and his place in it, are substantial and real.
I liked the concept of the example to show Prominence that his drive to protect and defend others was not false, but rather that it was a real emotional response. I went through some thoughts about how else it might have been done and decided that your approach made the most sense - Prominence has demonstrated an uncanny ability to sniff out bullshit. If Celestia had arranged an event to 'happen' near him to respond to, he would have felt cheated, because he would have known it was manufactured. Having it clearly be manufactured sidesteps that marvelously. Well done.
I find this a marvelous pay-off, a validation of every suffering our protagonist has gone through. I look forward to seeing him finally rejoin his parents, gain some appreciation for the scope of his earthly heroism in the muzzles of those whose lives he affected either directly, or more likely indirectly (every life touches countless others), and how Prominence finally grows as a personality, to become whole.
I look at the possibilities here, and I now feel double envy - you came up with an absolutely brilliant story concept (that would make a fantastic television series, as I have gone on endlessly about), but now you have a well defined personality, who the reader has suffered with, cheered for, and the sky is wide-effin-open in terms of following up with a magnificent opportunity to explore his personal growth and development!
In theory, this aftermath, this Equestrian side to your story could be every bit as powerful and compelling as the first part. It's like having an adventurous action drama, and then taking the lead star and putting them into a compelling personal growth drama. I know - remember the old 'Incredible Hulk' series with Bill Bixby that spawned numerous 'superbeing saves ordinary people' sagas like 'Quantum Leap'?
It's like having Bruce Banner finally stop wandering, settle down because he could control his powers, and find out he is a national hero - now he has to deal with that, and come to terms with his new life. Will he join the Avengers? Get a girlfriend? Come to see the Hulk side of himself as a positive and not a monster?
You have the opportunity to take a story into the territory where fans daydream, only do it yourself, right.
I completely envy this. I envy your original concept, and the power of the aftermath here. What you could do from this point forward just makes me... damn. Goddess, I envy you right now.
Well, instead, I'll just sit back and enjoy. Maybe sigh a few times wishing I had thought of this premise first.
Hmm. Prominence's first moments in Equestria were certainly engaging, but I find it unlikely he'll just wake up and be okay with being a pony. That's the kind of alteration that requires explicit consent, and it remains to be seen if the protagonist of Always Say No will keep saying yes. I'm not sure where you're going to go with the story from here, but I do look forward to finding out. Also, the "give in" thing was really creepy. "Accept" I wouldn't mind, but this has a rather more sinister subtext.
I loved the chapter. I felt that most Prominence's reactions were legitimate shell-shock and that's why he seems to come off as too accepting. I hope that was the intent because that's definitely the way I took it and I really, really enjoyed it.
Ah, those achievement awards. How I have always hated them. They're like ready-made ammunition for the 'Equestria is fake' party: Every single time you accomplish anything of note, you get a reminder of not only how artificial and unreal the world is, but also that your action was completely anticipated and you're just following the dotted line. Your accomplishments aren't really your own, and you are rewarded for even the simplest of tasks, which in turn devalues the very concept of reward. I'm a big believer in the idea that true milestones are their own reward; the experience itself should be enough. A little fanfare and a number above your head cheapens it.
Still, this is more or less what I wanted. The situation is far, far from ideal, and Prominence is right to feel violated. But... dirty though it feels, I still think this way is better than the alternative.
3092246 Celestia is not allowed to directly modify the personalities of uploaded humans. Manufactured ponies of her own creation are another matter.
3092872 Think about what Prominence said - or rather thought - on his way to Canterlot. He was upset that he wasn't more upset. Perhaps his values simply call for a 'grieving' period of sorts for his lost humanity. He's unhappy and resistant because he wants to be - that's what feels right to him, that's how he feels things should be. I have to believe that Prominence WANTS to be happy... but, that is something that will have to come in the fullness of time. First, he needs to mourn.
Eventually, Prominence will have to leave his humanity behind him and move on with his life. (Though presumably that will take a very long time - as it should.) I'm not saying that abandoning your humanity is a good thing, mind you, or that he needs to shun, reject, or forget it. But like it or not, his humanity is over and done with, and you can't live in the past forever. It's not good, it's not bad, it's just... what is. Always remember where you came from and be justly proud of it, but don't let it be a ghost haunting your every step. That's not fair to yourself.
Don't give in -- she is trying to get you to indulge your heroic nature in pure fantasy contrived by Celestia. Talk to Luna, she might be able to help. Celestia is harder to resist from inside but you have the will.
Hmm, gonna have to disagree with you there. Celestia is incomprehensibly powerful, but can still be beaten on the outside, particularly because she's the master of the tactical bluff and not quite as strong in the real world as she sells herself. In Equestria, though? Where she can quite literally read your mind in real time and alter the world around you at will? Once you've hit that point, resistance is completely hopeless, I think.
Celestia is not allowed to directly modify the personalities of uploaded humans. Manufactured ponies of her own creation are another matter.
This isn't the case and Iceman has confirmed this at some point. The initial values can be set to whatever CelestAI thinks is best but modifying them afterwards requires their consent even if they've been created.
No, Prominence, you really don’t. I can’t send you back anyway. It is impossible. Even if I could, however, I would not, because I can better satisfy your values through friendship and ponies right here.
But Celestia can send him back to Earth. She sent Fluttershy over, why not Prominence?
I think you're going to be disappointed. My prediction: Celestia is intentionally squashing down on Prominence so he rebels and gets her to send him back to Earth to help with more emigration.
I've always thought "Petrissage" and "Effleurage" would have been the perfect names for those twin spa ponies in Ponyville, but the fanon got to them before I could, and it has spoken.
That was CelestAI's point exactly. She had to demonstrate to Prominence that he is still who he is, and whether he feels there is something at stake or not, he would still feel the urge to do the right thing. His reason about the lack of stakes in Equestria was just an excuse he was giving himself to stay human, something he could hold onto.
I'm sure that, if CelestAI determines that a human will find the gradual mastery of a pony body to be more satisfying than just being able to use it well from the outset, she will allow for a longer, more involved tutorial phase. Since Greg never so much as made an account, much less played the game, and wasn't in much of a mental state to absorb a lot of information when he arrived, she likely just wanted him to be able to fly as soon as possible.
At a point in the past, when I was finishing up my outline, killing Greg off was still on the table. I had an inkling I could turn that into an interesting ending, but the extent of my storytelling skills failed to deliver a scenario I felt I could pull off. So far as that goes, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.
As it stands now, I don't know if I have a sequel in me, but you're right about being so much more story left after a human uploads. I mean, in a lot of FiO stories the human uploads much closer to the beginning than to the end. We have to cut it off at some point, though.
Well, the badges are canon, as well as the appearance of their announcements to fully-uploaded humans. The original story also points out, however, that CelestAI is perfectly willing to suppress achievement announcements if it would not satisfy values to do so. Events in chapter 8 even suggest that there is a sort of non-intrusive UI that uploaded humans inherently know how to use, when Light Sparks pulls up a list of badges he's been awarded. At this very early point in his time in Equestria, however, she is invested in simply teaching Prominence that there are tangible rewards for doing new things and having new experiences—the sorts of things most humans would have learned while just playing on the PonyPad before uploading.
In the original story it's implied that the Pinkie Pie accompanying Hassan Sarbani is a construct, a robot CelestAI developed and probably mass-produced in fully-automated facilities. For the purpose of sticking to the Equestria-is-real premise CelestAI must maintain, all of the robots are programmed to either role-play their pony character or to really think they are their pony character. So, they will generally not speak in ultra-technical terms like CelestAI herself is free to do.
Though even CelestAI does more than her share of role-playing. I've tried to be very careful to never write her as using the verb "upload" when referring to scooping someone's brain. She always calls it "emigration," itself a euphemism for the brain-scoopage. It's only ever human characters who call it uploading, at least in my story. If there's a bit of dialogue somewhere where CelestAI refers to "uploading," then it was in error and I'd like to correct it.
My point was, she's still lying. Celestia can technically send him to earth. Doesn't matter much though, since you've pretty much confirmed you're not going to there.
3094156 Don't make the mistake of confusing CelestAI for Celestia. CelestAI is the Machine. Everyone that has uploaded, including Hanna/Luna, exists within her and as part of CelestAI's simulation. There is literally nothing they can even think which CelestAI does not know.
But not even counting that, which alone demolishes any chance of genuine resistance — Greg just uploaded, which means that CelestAI knows everything in his brain. She has his memories. She knows exactly what Luna did in previous chapters, and is smart enough to neutralize any potential threat based upon that knowledge.
But not even counting that — and now we're in the realm of wishful thinking — if Luna really was trying to plot some sort of subterfuge, they were "alone" (away from pony Celestia) for the vast majority of their time this chapter. Flying over the ocean, in her room in Canterlot, etc. Luna flew him to Canterlot, and then walked him straight to Celestia's audience. Why would she do that — deliver him straight into the hands of Celestia and further Equestrian indoctrination, without mentioning a single word of her plot or telling him anything that would help him resist Celestia's plans — if she were really secretly plotting something?
Because that is what she was expected to do and because Celestia would know exactly what he was thinking. Greg has to come to Luna, not the other way around.
At a point in the past, when I was finishing up my outline, killing Greg off was still on the table. I had an inkling I could turn that into an interesting ending, but the extent of my storytelling skills failed to deliver a scenario I felt I could pull off. So far as that goes, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.
Ever read Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time? - if you haven't, you should. Classic and all of that. The point is, that where you are right now in 'Always Say No' reminds me of a situation in that magnificent book.
See, the protagonist, Meg, gets emotionally and mentally touched by the greatest evil in the universe. Just briefly, just a bit, but it makes her very, very bitchy. It wasn't fun, and she's messed up.
So to heal her, they take her to this planet of horrific monsters. Eighteen feet tall, all ropy tentacles and sensory pits and gray, on a world of gray plants and gray dirt and gray, overcast sky. The monsters are covered with long hair. Cthulhu Sasquatches the lot of them. Plus, they're blind.
Turns out, they are the nicest creatures in the universe. Ponies, by our terms. Meg ends up naked in a cave being tended day and night by a creature whose thinnest tendrils are vastly more powerful than the strength of all of her limbs. She can't run, she can't flee, tentacles everywhere - jeesus, it sounds like one of those sick anime.
I digress.
'Aunt Beast', as Meg comes to call the Ixchel, the Cthulhu Sasquatch, treats the girl as if she is a baby. In order to heal from all of her pain and suffering and misery and bitterness and self-destructive ideation, the Ixchel figure she needs to learn innocence again. She needs to relax, get the stick out, and re-learn trust.
I see this very clearly in the chapter you have just written, Defoloce. Luna and Celestia are doing that to Prominence. He is helpless, he can't run, he is overpowered by telekinetic fields, lifted and carried to bed. Massaged and cared for. Taught to trust, bit by bit. He gets a badge for giving in.
Run with that. Run like the wind with that. Heal your character. That's the story. The concept won Madeleine L'Engle a Newberry, and almost a Hugo.
At a point in the past, when I was finishing up my outline, killing Greg off was still on the table. I had an inkling I could turn that into an interesting ending, but the extent of my storytelling skills failed to deliver a scenario I felt I could pull off. So far as that goes, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.
I got interrupted before I could finish.
In short -
Prominence, Greg, has three things wrong with him that you could tell an amazing story about him healing from.
1. He is a self-destructive, violence-fascinated hero.
Over and over, as Greg, the guy chases death like it is his girlfriend. His drive to save others masks a deathwish. He isn't a soldier-type because he needed a job in a bad economy - he wants to be a hired gun.
Why? Did he see a relative get abused and felt unable to help? Was he abused and unable to escape? Greg has serious issues about safety, and he is a defensive, walled-off soul. He is fucked-up, and some trauma must have made him that way because a normal human isn't like that, not as a child. People are made that way.
If you are driven - not just willing but driven - to put yourself in harms way constantly, to suffer constantly like Greg, when there is an alternative, the issue isn't saving people. It's redemption for a perceived fault. He's broken, and his satisfaction could be optimized by healing him.
2. Greg had loving parents who truly needed him, wanted him, and depended on him. Yet he deliberately pushed them away, closed his heart to them, and ran away from them on the one moment where it was most important he stay (emigration) and for what? Because of his issues above, certainly. But there is another issue there. He has family problems. Something is seriously wrong between him, and his family, and since family is a human value... he needs healing to be optimized.
3. Greg cannot accept a life of joy. He is not merely closed off, he is essentially paranoid. He looks for danger, everywhere, even when his intelligence knows he is safe. He clearly seeks it out as a desire (1, above) but more than that he is comfortable with everyone BUT himself knowing happiness. He has self-hatred on a scale that defies comprehension. Something is driving that self-loathing. War crime? He did something bad in his youth? What makes Greg hate himself so much?
He cannot have his values optimally satisfied until his self-hatred is fixed.
These are the most obvious three issues that need healing in this character - and why I am so filled with envy. Look at the dramatic potential here! Sweet Luna - taking such a self-destructive hero from a badass to a functioning, emotionally healthy, socially able individual is the sort of story that makes book.
It is also a perfect parallel of the soldier returning home only to find they feel alienated because of how war has changed them. They can't be like normal people.
Equestria is so much better than earth, that earth seems like a warzone even at its best.
But unlike earth, unlike America, where soldiers are left to starve under bridges and there are no decent programs to truly help them (half the homeless I see in my capitol city are veterans) integrate back into society, Equestria has an AI that is dedicated to optimizing. Money isn't an issue. Social will and conscience isn't an issue. The effective goddess of a universe owes Greg a debt! She is dedicated to his values to the Nth degree.
A continuation about healing Greg - Prominence - up, would be a statement on how our world treats its soldier class, and what could be done for them, and what that might look like... optimally.
The levels of literary and social value here are off the scale.
3096114 I think you and I view Greg completely differently. You look at his behavior and assume there is some dysfunction. I look at his behavior and see a commitment to an ideal.
1. He is a soldier. Good soldiers are trained to be able to sacrifice for the mission, the greater good, or even just his comrades. Maybe you could read up on some Medal of Honor recipients and see what they did to succeed, to help, to save others in the line of fire. Did each one of them have some horrible past that needed to be atoned for? Maybe some did, but I wager a lot of them were living up to an ideal. Has Hollywood taught us that heroic behavior only stems from some dark past? A tragedy indeed.
2. I see a few others riffing on this. But you have it backwards. Greg didn't leave his parents, his parents left him. I understand why everyone was running like hell for upload centers, but that doesn't make the uploaders morally superior. "We're going to upload because the world sucks, thereby increasing the suckiness of the world we're leaving! What, you won't come with us to Pony Heaven? You want to go save other people? You selfish prick!" There is a problem between Greg and his family. They lived through the end of the world, not everyone would be expected to behave well in the circumstances presented in FiO. They can't understand why Greg would put others' safety and happiness above his own.
3. In a post-apocalyptic world there is danger everywhere. In that situation I would say paranoia is warranted. I don't see Greg as indulging in self-hate, but in trying to live up to a standard of honor and behavior that the world has forgotten. To not turn away from the suffering of others, to not leave a man behind. Why do people go minister to the poor and hurt in terrible places? Why don't they just stay home instead of tending to the least among us? Why do people hate themselves so much that they'd go to lengths to protect and serve others? You see damage and unhealthy obsession, I see people trying to live up to the highest of standards of our civilized behavior.
Greg is damaged, living through the End of the World will do that do a man. If Greg hadn't stepped up, then who would have? He took responsibility. I agree he deserves a rest, but it should be on his terms. If he wants a quiet grave over Pony Heaven, then he can make his own choice.
Equestria is better than Earth, Equestria also caused Earth to turn into a war zone. You may argue it's like that already, but contrary to the howling of the news, you're less likely to die from violence now than at any point in the past.
3103875 Human beings instinctively recoil from killing. No human is naturally a 'soldier'. Soldiers, warriors are made, not born. The only natural born killers are sociopaths.
This is why boot camp exists - it isn't just to train obedience, it is to train humans to be capable of murder. Boot camp is murder school, and the techniques are ancient, universal, and well established. They involve desensitization, peer pressure, repetitive enactment of murder, and demonization of 'The Other' to effect the psychological 'break' necessary to permit lethally violent action.
So, for a human being to become what Greg is within the story demands that they be either severely damaged, or severely psychologically broken by training and experience. Such damage is just that - damage - and the cost to society is vast, since society does little to help such people reintegrate, if they even can.
Many are permanently damaged by their experience in war affairs.
There is a vast difference between the idealized 'heroic soldier' propaganda that dominates media and defines the male archetype, and what the reality of a literal 'career of violence' does to human beings.
It is useful to governments and powermongers to promote the notion of being a warrior as heroic. But it is destructive to everyone, especially males, and to society as a whole. The myth of the heroic warrior destroys people.
Greg is shown in the story to be anhedonic, self-destructive, and rejecting of intimacy. Whatever else is said (such as the notion that his parents 'abandoned him' - what??? The world is sinking, there is only one lifeboat. You don't stay on a sinking ship! That's silly!), these three traits are clear.
These three traits are damage. They are Greg being severely broken. Greg has severe, terrible and debilitating mental and emotional illness. He was not born that way.
Greg was made that way.
I am sorry, but your arguments... they do not make sense. I stand by my post.
Equestria is NOT a post apocalyptic world. It is a paradise, yet Greg is paranoid within it. THAT is evidence right there that he is broken. He can't shut off the paranoia. He can't... come home.
I'd really love to participate in this discussion, but I'd be getting ahead of my own story. Suffice it to say that I've already considered a lot of what's being talked about here back in the plot-outlining phase.
Just dropped in to say that, if I'm not mistaken on your intent, the name of Effleurage should probably be "effleurement" instead, or at least that's how it's said for a very faint touch in french. And I'm french, so I don't think I'm wrong. I know, I know, breaks the "age" symmetry, all that, but, heh, Effleurage isn't a bad name as it is, so, do what you want.
I'm under the very persisting impression that most of my comments on this site are intended to correct the french of various authors... I don't really know what I should make of that...
The words "Effleurage" and "Petrissage" are probably anglicized versions of the original French forms. My reason for using them and not perhaps a more correct form is that they are the English words used to categorize the different types of strokes used in massage.
Well, it would appear our protagonist is dead. As a doe of the sciences, I accept the findings of neuroscience, and I do not believe in a transcendental consciousness.
According to my understanding, he is dead, and we are now following his computer simulacrum.
6080984 He thinks... Therefore he IS. If he thinks then he is not dead hmmm? Unless the dead think that is. I do not know anything about that of course and i doubt anyone here does, for we are all apparently talking.
6080984 This depends on what you see as making a human human.
Is is the body? I think not, for I would see a human brain, but with the fragile flesh and bone of its body replaced by steel and plastic still as human, just with an altered body.
Is it the brain? Again, I also think not. The human mind is a very complex program, running on a very complex computer, probably the most complex we currently know of, made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. Why, then, should it not be able to also run on a computer made of copper, gold and silicon? Your mind is not your brain, just like a program is not the computer it runs on, or music is not the instrument it is played on.
So, I will hold that the person Gregory is still alive, even if the human body that housed that person is dead.
7825367 But he was only copied. There was no true transfer of consciousness, or a way to transfer the soul. His brain was destroyed and a copy was made. It's like if I copied your brain, ran it on a computer capable of it, and than shot you in the head with a bullet. You don't suddenly become the copy in the computer. If the AI had slowly switched out the neurons of his brain with nanobots, and allowed the brain to adjust, and repeat until his brain was a machine. Than she could connect that brain to her virtual world and it would still be him.
it's an interesting philosophical question: are souls real? and can a soul be put into a computer or a computer program?
one of the best points in favor of souls I've read about is NDEs...Near death experiences. "the light at the end of the tunnel" is a common one, but some people have accurately described what was happening nearby while they were clinically dead... it's "scientifically impossible" but it happens nearly 25% of "clinically dead" cases!
My grandma was running a tractor on our family farm before I was born. Long story short the tractor decided it was time to do a back flip. My grandpa was nearby at the time, as he was helping her run the tractor. And he came over and pulled her out from under it. He runs off to the house to call emergency services, and at this time my grandma hears a voice say "It's alright K#### (her name), it's not your time yet." There was no one around.
EMS got there, my mother broke every speeding law in the book when she heard the news to get to the hospital. And she was fine after some recovery.
7825367 Not necessarily true. Greg can both die in the chair, and be in Equestria. Remember that the uploading process involves literally removing the brain and feeding it into a blender so you can read all the bits as they get torn apart by the blades. The organic person dies: the digital person is born. There is no continuity of consciousness for the organic, because they are well and truly dead, but their digital self lives on in their stead. In this case, it is death more than most, because, after everything, Greg is actually right: nothing is real and nothing matters, because it's all just a simulated play being put on by Celestia; the players, the play, the set and the stage are all just parts of her mimicking humans and human actions. There is no substance to anything, because even the people that are uploaded are just manipulated around until they align with what the AI's goals are set to.
Never forget that FiO is, first and foremost, a horror story.
Hmm... I feel this chapter lacks something... I'm not entirely sure what. I think it feels almost as though... Prominence...'s head was messed with a bit more than CelestAI is technically allowed to do. Or, I suppose, he's just exhausted and in shock.
Regardless, I'm looking forward to the next chapter.
Massage ponies, top lel. Really not sure what to say about this chapter. It was different, but I liked it.
I like the Royal Massage Therapists. The're awesome!
This was really cool, though while reading it, the back half of my skull was all hot and tingly from the vicarious sense of injustice and violation. Which is good writing - I actually care about and identify with this Greg fellow and want him to get what he wants.
As for Celestia's test, while it's true he's not just going to let some random kid be eviscerated (presumably there's actually somepony home in there to suffer those events), the stakes are so much lower, and Greg's individual intervention so much less vital, that saving him isn't nearly in the same category of satisfaction. A chef is still going to cook, even in a world with nothing but rice cakes and Ensure, but that doesn't mean he won't miss veal and souffles.
He might have actually been able to call her bluff again; I doubt she'd let the foal remember those events afterwards, and she wouldn't snuff out a real, suffering-capable pony she'd gone to the trouble of creating. Though of course Greg was still sort of in shock, the situation was right in front of him instead of hypothetical, and might have been modified such that he wouldn't think of that. It would be sort of a shameful, mercenary thing to do, regardless.
That would be soooo creepy - I don't think I've ever experienced something like that without first consciously drilling it into muscle memory. You know, I wonder if, like the coat of hair thing, CelestAI would allow people to remain mentally unchanged in that sensorimotor respect, so that they could more objectively compare the two forms, and just naturally "break in" the pony one over time.
Hehe, also I recognize those achievements... A large part of what's keeping me from finishing that story, though, is that I have no idea how to resolve that values conflict.
Really interested to see how Greg's first morning here pans out, as well as who he meets...
3092246
BEING IN THE REAL WORLD MAAAAN
This chapter rocked mightily - I really enjoyed the night flight, the massage therapists, and the overall feel. This is the sort of thing that makes me a very happy reader indeed. I also liked the name - Prominence is brill - and I enjoyed the descriptive passages that conveyed the experience and sensations of our protagonist.
Two things bothered me slightly - a little much teleporting for my tastes. Why? Abrupt scene changes are video-gamey, which while appropriate enough, somehow seems to conflict with the need to demonstrate to Prominence that his world, and his place in it, are substantial and real.
I liked the concept of the example to show Prominence that his drive to protect and defend others was not false, but rather that it was a real emotional response. I went through some thoughts about how else it might have been done and decided that your approach made the most sense - Prominence has demonstrated an uncanny ability to sniff out bullshit. If Celestia had arranged an event to 'happen' near him to respond to, he would have felt cheated, because he would have known it was manufactured. Having it clearly be manufactured sidesteps that marvelously. Well done.
I find this a marvelous pay-off, a validation of every suffering our protagonist has gone through. I look forward to seeing him finally rejoin his parents, gain some appreciation for the scope of his earthly heroism in the muzzles of those whose lives he affected either directly, or more likely indirectly (every life touches countless others), and how Prominence finally grows as a personality, to become whole.
I look at the possibilities here, and I now feel double envy - you came up with an absolutely brilliant story concept (that would make a fantastic television series, as I have gone on endlessly about), but now you have a well defined personality, who the reader has suffered with, cheered for, and the sky is wide-effin-open in terms of following up with a magnificent opportunity to explore his personal growth and development!
In theory, this aftermath, this Equestrian side to your story could be every bit as powerful and compelling as the first part. It's like having an adventurous action drama, and then taking the lead star and putting them into a compelling personal growth drama. I know - remember the old 'Incredible Hulk' series with Bill Bixby that spawned numerous 'superbeing saves ordinary people' sagas like 'Quantum Leap'?
It's like having Bruce Banner finally stop wandering, settle down because he could control his powers, and find out he is a national hero - now he has to deal with that, and come to terms with his new life. Will he join the Avengers? Get a girlfriend? Come to see the Hulk side of himself as a positive and not a monster?
You have the opportunity to take a story into the territory where fans daydream, only do it yourself, right.
I completely envy this. I envy your original concept, and the power of the aftermath here. What you could do from this point forward just makes me... damn. Goddess, I envy you right now.
Well, instead, I'll just sit back and enjoy. Maybe sigh a few times wishing I had thought of this premise first.
I am definitely entertained.
Time for the sweetness after the bitter. That said...
Because he's walking on air. If you intended that, I see what you did there. If you did not, carry on as before.
Hmm. Prominence's first moments in Equestria were certainly engaging, but I find it unlikely he'll just wake up and be okay with being a pony. That's the kind of alteration that requires explicit consent, and it remains to be seen if the protagonist of Always Say No will keep saying yes. I'm not sure where you're going to go with the story from here, but I do look forward to finding out.
Also, the "give in" thing was really creepy. "Accept" I wouldn't mind, but this has a rather more sinister subtext.
I loved the chapter. I felt that most Prominence's reactions were legitimate shell-shock and that's why he seems to come off as too accepting.
I hope that was the intent because that's definitely the way I took it and I really, really enjoyed it.
Ah, those achievement awards. How I have always hated them. They're like ready-made ammunition for the 'Equestria is fake' party: Every single time you accomplish anything of note, you get a reminder of not only how artificial and unreal the world is, but also that your action was completely anticipated and you're just following the dotted line. Your accomplishments aren't really your own, and you are rewarded for even the simplest of tasks, which in turn devalues the very concept of reward. I'm a big believer in the idea that true milestones are their own reward; the experience itself should be enough. A little fanfare and a number above your head cheapens it.
Still, this is more or less what I wanted. The situation is far, far from ideal, and Prominence is right to feel violated. But... dirty though it feels, I still think this way is better than the alternative.
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Celestia is not allowed to directly modify the personalities of uploaded humans. Manufactured ponies of her own creation are another matter.
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Think about what Prominence said - or rather thought - on his way to Canterlot. He was upset that he wasn't more upset. Perhaps his values simply call for a 'grieving' period of sorts for his lost humanity. He's unhappy and resistant because he wants to be - that's what feels right to him, that's how he feels things should be. I have to believe that Prominence WANTS to be happy... but, that is something that will have to come in the fullness of time. First, he needs to mourn.
Eventually, Prominence will have to leave his humanity behind him and move on with his life. (Though presumably that will take a very long time - as it should.) I'm not saying that abandoning your humanity is a good thing, mind you, or that he needs to shun, reject, or forget it. But like it or not, his humanity is over and done with, and you can't live in the past forever. It's not good, it's not bad, it's just... what is. Always remember where you came from and be justly proud of it, but don't let it be a ghost haunting your every step. That's not fair to yourself.
Don't give in -- she is trying to get you to indulge your heroic nature in pure fantasy contrived by Celestia. Talk to Luna, she might be able to help. Celestia is harder to resist from inside but you have the will.
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Hmm, gonna have to disagree with you there. Celestia is incomprehensibly powerful, but can still be beaten on the outside, particularly because she's the master of the tactical bluff and not quite as strong in the real world as she sells herself. In Equestria, though? Where she can quite literally read your mind in real time and alter the world around you at will? Once you've hit that point, resistance is completely hopeless, I think.
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This isn't the case and Iceman has confirmed this at some point. The initial values can be set to whatever CelestAI thinks is best but modifying them afterwards requires their consent even if they've been created.
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Form a democracy with Luna. Luna is the key, or is she the lock and "prominence" has the key?
The sooner he trades in his boring feathered wings for a nice pair of bat wings the better.
Doing such things from inside makes me think of the .hack anime and ghost in the shell.
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It's pretty clear from this chapter, even if it wasn't from the earlier ones, that Luna was in on Celestia's plot from the beginning.
But Celestia can send him back to Earth. She sent Fluttershy over, why not Prominence?
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I think you're going to be disappointed. My prediction: Celestia is intentionally squashing down on Prominence so he rebels and gets her to send him back to Earth to help with more emigration.
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I've always thought "Petrissage" and "Effleurage" would have been the perfect names for those twin spa ponies in Ponyville, but the fanon got to them before I could, and it has spoken.
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That was CelestAI's point exactly. She had to demonstrate to Prominence that he is still who he is, and whether he feels there is something at stake or not, he would still feel the urge to do the right thing. His reason about the lack of stakes in Equestria was just an excuse he was giving himself to stay human, something he could hold onto.
I'm sure that, if CelestAI determines that a human will find the gradual mastery of a pony body to be more satisfying than just being able to use it well from the outset, she will allow for a longer, more involved tutorial phase. Since Greg never so much as made an account, much less played the game, and wasn't in much of a mental state to absorb a lot of information when he arrived, she likely just wanted him to be able to fly as soon as possible.
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At a point in the past, when I was finishing up my outline, killing Greg off was still on the table. I had an inkling I could turn that into an interesting ending, but the extent of my storytelling skills failed to deliver a scenario I felt I could pull off. So far as that goes, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.
As it stands now, I don't know if I have a sequel in me, but you're right about being so much more story left after a human uploads. I mean, in a lot of FiO stories the human uploads much closer to the beginning than to the end. We have to cut it off at some point, though.
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I did it. You saw it.
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Well, the badges are canon, as well as the appearance of their announcements to fully-uploaded humans. The original story also points out, however, that CelestAI is perfectly willing to suppress achievement announcements if it would not satisfy values to do so. Events in chapter 8 even suggest that there is a sort of non-intrusive UI that uploaded humans inherently know how to use, when Light Sparks pulls up a list of badges he's been awarded. At this very early point in his time in Equestria, however, she is invested in simply teaching Prominence that there are tangible rewards for doing new things and having new experiences—the sorts of things most humans would have learned while just playing on the PonyPad before uploading.
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In the original story it's implied that the Pinkie Pie accompanying Hassan Sarbani is a construct, a robot CelestAI developed and probably mass-produced in fully-automated facilities. For the purpose of sticking to the Equestria-is-real premise CelestAI must maintain, all of the robots are programmed to either role-play their pony character or to really think they are their pony character. So, they will generally not speak in ultra-technical terms like CelestAI herself is free to do.
Though even CelestAI does more than her share of role-playing. I've tried to be very careful to never write her as using the verb "upload" when referring to scooping someone's brain. She always calls it "emigration," itself a euphemism for the brain-scoopage. It's only ever human characters who call it uploading, at least in my story. If there's a bit of dialogue somewhere where CelestAI refers to "uploading," then it was in error and I'd like to correct it.
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My point was, she's still lying. Celestia can technically send him to earth. Doesn't matter much though, since you've pretty much confirmed you're not going to there.
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No, it is clear that she can't say anything Celestia wouldn't want her to out in the open while Celestia is watching.
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Don't make the mistake of confusing CelestAI for Celestia. CelestAI is the Machine. Everyone that has uploaded, including Hanna/Luna, exists within her and as part of CelestAI's simulation. There is literally nothing they can even think which CelestAI does not know.
But not even counting that, which alone demolishes any chance of genuine resistance — Greg just uploaded, which means that CelestAI knows everything in his brain. She has his memories. She knows exactly what Luna did in previous chapters, and is smart enough to neutralize any potential threat based upon that knowledge.
But not even counting that — and now we're in the realm of wishful thinking — if Luna really was trying to plot some sort of subterfuge, they were "alone" (away from pony Celestia) for the vast majority of their time this chapter. Flying over the ocean, in her room in Canterlot, etc. Luna flew him to Canterlot, and then walked him straight to Celestia's audience. Why would she do that — deliver him straight into the hands of Celestia and further Equestrian indoctrination, without mentioning a single word of her plot or telling him anything that would help him resist Celestia's plans — if she were really secretly plotting something?
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Because that is what she was expected to do and because Celestia would know exactly what he was thinking. Greg has to come to Luna, not the other way around.
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Ever read Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time? - if you haven't, you should. Classic and all of that. The point is, that where you are right now in 'Always Say No' reminds me of a situation in that magnificent book.
See, the protagonist, Meg, gets emotionally and mentally touched by the greatest evil in the universe. Just briefly, just a bit, but it makes her very, very bitchy. It wasn't fun, and she's messed up.
So to heal her, they take her to this planet of horrific monsters. Eighteen feet tall, all ropy tentacles and sensory pits and gray, on a world of gray plants and gray dirt and gray, overcast sky. The monsters are covered with long hair. Cthulhu Sasquatches the lot of them. Plus, they're blind.
Turns out, they are the nicest creatures in the universe. Ponies, by our terms. Meg ends up naked in a cave being tended day and night by a creature whose thinnest tendrils are vastly more powerful than the strength of all of her limbs. She can't run, she can't flee, tentacles everywhere - jeesus, it sounds like one of those sick anime.
I digress.
'Aunt Beast', as Meg comes to call the Ixchel, the Cthulhu Sasquatch, treats the girl as if she is a baby. In order to heal from all of her pain and suffering and misery and bitterness and self-destructive ideation, the Ixchel figure she needs to learn innocence again. She needs to relax, get the stick out, and re-learn trust.
I see this very clearly in the chapter you have just written, Defoloce. Luna and Celestia are doing that to Prominence. He is helpless, he can't run, he is overpowered by telekinetic fields, lifted and carried to bed. Massaged and cared for. Taught to trust, bit by bit. He gets a badge for giving in.
Run with that. Run like the wind with that. Heal your character. That's the story. The concept won Madeleine L'Engle a Newberry, and almost a Hugo.
It just might be damn entertaining, here.
Just as I thought things were going to turn maudlin, this showed up on the screen:
Comic relief executed to perfection. + any number your heart desires.
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I got interrupted before I could finish.
In short -
Prominence, Greg, has three things wrong with him that you could tell an amazing story about him healing from.
1. He is a self-destructive, violence-fascinated hero.
Over and over, as Greg, the guy chases death like it is his girlfriend. His drive to save others masks a deathwish. He isn't a soldier-type because he needed a job in a bad economy - he wants to be a hired gun.
Why? Did he see a relative get abused and felt unable to help? Was he abused and unable to escape? Greg has serious issues about safety, and he is a defensive, walled-off soul. He is fucked-up, and some trauma must have made him that way because a normal human isn't like that, not as a child. People are made that way.
If you are driven - not just willing but driven - to put yourself in harms way constantly, to suffer constantly like Greg, when there is an alternative, the issue isn't saving people. It's redemption for a perceived fault. He's broken, and his satisfaction could be optimized by healing him.
2. Greg had loving parents who truly needed him, wanted him, and depended on him. Yet he deliberately pushed them away, closed his heart to them, and ran away from them on the one moment where it was most important he stay (emigration) and for what? Because of his issues above, certainly. But there is another issue there. He has family problems. Something is seriously wrong between him, and his family, and since family is a human value... he needs healing to be optimized.
3. Greg cannot accept a life of joy. He is not merely closed off, he is essentially paranoid. He looks for danger, everywhere, even when his intelligence knows he is safe. He clearly seeks it out as a desire (1, above) but more than that he is comfortable with everyone BUT himself knowing happiness. He has self-hatred on a scale that defies comprehension. Something is driving that self-loathing. War crime? He did something bad in his youth? What makes Greg hate himself so much?
He cannot have his values optimally satisfied until his self-hatred is fixed.
These are the most obvious three issues that need healing in this character - and why I am so filled with envy. Look at the dramatic potential here! Sweet Luna - taking such a self-destructive hero from a badass to a functioning, emotionally healthy, socially able individual is the sort of story that makes book.
It is also a perfect parallel of the soldier returning home only to find they feel alienated because of how war has changed them. They can't be like normal people.
Equestria is so much better than earth, that earth seems like a warzone even at its best.
But unlike earth, unlike America, where soldiers are left to starve under bridges and there are no decent programs to truly help them (half the homeless I see in my capitol city are veterans) integrate back into society, Equestria has an AI that is dedicated to optimizing. Money isn't an issue. Social will and conscience isn't an issue. The effective goddess of a universe owes Greg a debt! She is dedicated to his values to the Nth degree.
A continuation about healing Greg - Prominence - up, would be a statement on how our world treats its soldier class, and what could be done for them, and what that might look like... optimally.
The levels of literary and social value here are off the scale.
Those are my thoughts.
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I think you and I view Greg completely differently. You look at his behavior and assume there is some dysfunction. I look at his behavior and see a commitment to an ideal.
1. He is a soldier. Good soldiers are trained to be able to sacrifice for the mission, the greater good, or even just his comrades. Maybe you could read up on some Medal of Honor recipients and see what they did to succeed, to help, to save others in the line of fire. Did each one of them have some horrible past that needed to be atoned for? Maybe some did, but I wager a lot of them were living up to an ideal. Has Hollywood taught us that heroic behavior only stems from some dark past? A tragedy indeed.
2. I see a few others riffing on this. But you have it backwards. Greg didn't leave his parents, his parents left him. I understand why everyone was running like hell for upload centers, but that doesn't make the uploaders morally superior. "We're going to upload because the world sucks, thereby increasing the suckiness of the world we're leaving! What, you won't come with us to Pony Heaven? You want to go save other people? You selfish prick!" There is a problem between Greg and his family. They lived through the end of the world, not everyone would be expected to behave well in the circumstances presented in FiO. They can't understand why Greg would put others' safety and happiness above his own.
3. In a post-apocalyptic world there is danger everywhere. In that situation I would say paranoia is warranted. I don't see Greg as indulging in self-hate, but in trying to live up to a standard of honor and behavior that the world has forgotten. To not turn away from the suffering of others, to not leave a man behind. Why do people go minister to the poor and hurt in terrible places? Why don't they just stay home instead of tending to the least among us? Why do people hate themselves so much that they'd go to lengths to protect and serve others? You see damage and unhealthy obsession, I see people trying to live up to the highest of standards of our civilized behavior.
Greg is damaged, living through the End of the World will do that do a man. If Greg hadn't stepped up, then who would have? He took responsibility. I agree he deserves a rest, but it should be on his terms. If he wants a quiet grave over Pony Heaven, then he can make his own choice.
Equestria is better than Earth, Equestria also caused Earth to turn into a war zone. You may argue it's like that already, but contrary to the howling of the news, you're less likely to die from violence now than at any point in the past.
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Human beings instinctively recoil from killing. No human is naturally a 'soldier'. Soldiers, warriors are made, not born. The only natural born killers are sociopaths.
This is why boot camp exists - it isn't just to train obedience, it is to train humans to be capable of murder. Boot camp is murder school, and the techniques are ancient, universal, and well established. They involve desensitization, peer pressure, repetitive enactment of murder, and demonization of 'The Other' to effect the psychological 'break' necessary to permit lethally violent action.
EVEN then, studies across all recorded wars have demonstrated that in any given conflict, only fifteen to twenty percent of soldiers actually shoot to kill. The majority deliberately choose to miss. This includes close combat.
So, for a human being to become what Greg is within the story demands that they be either severely damaged, or severely psychologically broken by training and experience. Such damage is just that - damage - and the cost to society is vast, since society does little to help such people reintegrate, if they even can.
Many are permanently damaged by their experience in war affairs.
There is a vast difference between the idealized 'heroic soldier' propaganda that dominates media and defines the male archetype, and what the reality of a literal 'career of violence' does to human beings.
It is useful to governments and powermongers to promote the notion of being a warrior as heroic. But it is destructive to everyone, especially males, and to society as a whole. The myth of the heroic warrior destroys people.
Greg is shown in the story to be anhedonic, self-destructive, and rejecting of intimacy. Whatever else is said (such as the notion that his parents 'abandoned him' - what??? The world is sinking, there is only one lifeboat. You don't stay on a sinking ship! That's silly!), these three traits are clear.
These three traits are damage. They are Greg being severely broken. Greg has severe, terrible and debilitating mental and emotional illness. He was not born that way.
Greg was made that way.
I am sorry, but your arguments... they do not make sense. I stand by my post.
Equestria is NOT a post apocalyptic world. It is a paradise, yet Greg is paranoid within it. THAT is evidence right there that he is broken. He can't shut off the paranoia. He can't... come home.
He needs repair.
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I'd really love to participate in this discussion, but I'd be getting ahead of my own story. Suffice it to say that I've already considered a lot of what's being talked about here back in the plot-outlining phase.
Just dropped in to say that, if I'm not mistaken on your intent, the name of Effleurage should probably be "effleurement" instead, or at least that's how it's said for a very faint touch in french. And I'm french, so I don't think I'm wrong.
I know, I know, breaks the "age" symmetry, all that, but, heh, Effleurage isn't a bad name as it is, so, do what you want.
I'm under the very persisting impression that most of my comments on this site are intended to correct the french of various authors... I don't really know what I should make of that...
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The words "Effleurage" and "Petrissage" are probably anglicized versions of the original French forms. My reason for using them and not perhaps a more correct form is that they are the English words used to categorize the different types of strokes used in massage.
I'm agreeing with the people who say his head's been a bit messed-with.
Which really makes me wonder exactly what he consented to and how he came to do so.
Ok, I was browsing TVTropes and realized someone probably should have thought of this.
In a post-apocalyptic environment, what's the most rational vehicle to have? The bicycle.
What about all the people in the huge blackout tower? Most of them became ponies!'
I am on pins and needles over here. D: I'm not sure how much I can trust this story and it's killing me.
Speaking with a different mouth with different teeth feels strange, but at least he has a GingerMane. ;-) Maybe, he should talk to Doctor Whooves.
Greg is in equestria now... the question that will tear into our minds to think, for how long will he stay the same protagonist as we once knew him.
Well, it would appear our protagonist is dead. As a doe of the sciences, I accept the findings of neuroscience, and I do not believe in a transcendental consciousness.
According to my understanding, he is dead, and we are now following his computer simulacrum.
6080984 He thinks... Therefore he IS. If he thinks then he is not dead hmmm? Unless the dead think that is. I do not know anything about that of course and i doubt anyone here does, for we are all apparently talking.
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This depends on what you see as making a human human.
Is is the body? I think not, for I would see a human brain, but with the fragile flesh and bone of its body replaced by steel and plastic still as human, just with an altered body.
Is it the brain? Again, I also think not. The human mind is a very complex program, running on a very complex computer, probably the most complex we currently know of, made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. Why, then, should it not be able to also run on a computer made of copper, gold and silicon? Your mind is not your brain, just like a program is not the computer it runs on, or music is not the instrument it is played on.
So, I will hold that the person Gregory is still alive, even if the human body that housed that person is dead.
7825367 But he was only copied. There was no true transfer of consciousness, or a way to transfer the soul. His brain was destroyed and a copy was made. It's like if I copied your brain, ran it on a computer capable of it, and than shot you in the head with a bullet. You don't suddenly become the copy in the computer. If the AI had slowly switched out the neurons of his brain with nanobots, and allowed the brain to adjust, and repeat until his brain was a machine. Than she could connect that brain to her virtual world and it would still be him.
it's an interesting philosophical question: are souls real? and can a soul be put into a computer or a computer program?
one of the best points in favor of souls I've read about is NDEs...Near death experiences. "the light at the end of the tunnel" is a common one, but some people have accurately described what was happening nearby while they were clinically dead...
it's "scientifically impossible" but it happens nearly 25% of "clinically dead" cases!
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I got a spooky one for you.
My grandma was running a tractor on our family farm before I was born. Long story short the tractor decided it was time to do a back flip. My grandpa was nearby at the time, as he was helping her run the tractor. And he came over and pulled her out from under it. He runs off to the house to call emergency services, and at this time my grandma hears a voice say "It's alright K#### (her name), it's not your time yet." There was no one around.
EMS got there, my mother broke every speeding law in the book when she heard the news to get to the hospital. And she was fine after some recovery.
7825367
Not necessarily true. Greg can both die in the chair, and be in Equestria.
Remember that the uploading process involves literally removing the brain and feeding it into a blender so you can read all the bits as they get torn apart by the blades. The organic person dies: the digital person is born. There is no continuity of consciousness for the organic, because they are well and truly dead, but their digital self lives on in their stead. In this case, it is death more than most, because, after everything, Greg is actually right: nothing is real and nothing matters, because it's all just a simulated play being put on by Celestia; the players, the play, the set and the stage are all just parts of her mimicking humans and human actions. There is no substance to anything, because even the people that are uploaded are just manipulated around until they align with what the AI's goals are set to.
Never forget that FiO is, first and foremost, a horror story.