Recap of "The Iron Horse: Everything's Better With Robots!" · 5:54pm Apr 1st, 2018
This is a quick recap for people who haven't read The Iron Horse: Everything's Better With Robots! but still want to read "Human After All" or other future works. If you're still reading it, there are massive spoilers after the break, so be warned!
(Does best DWK impression) Okay, so, like there’s this robot and (massive coughing)
Okay, no, scratch that. Anyway, once upon a time during Season 5...
One night, the CMCs encounter a robot pony who has been struck by lightning in Sweet Apple Acres. Right before it collapses, it says just one thing: “Twilight Sparkle…”
Twilight is called in to look at it and tells Applejack that it’s an automaton similar to the clockwork kind that were built a long time ago, but is shocked to find that this one can actually move and speak independently. She sets about fixing it with the help of these two:
Cornelius Vanderbull (left), a train tycoon and industrialist who knows Princess Celestia, and his assistant, Gadget (right)), a prodigy with machines who has even managed to build herself some mechanical arms that are powered by her Earth Pony magic.
They fix the robot and find that it has a very rudimentary personality and no memory of where it came from or what its original mission was. Twilight gives the robot a new primary directive to test its capabilities: “Make friends.”
She also gives the robot her new name: Turing Test, seen below.
What follows for most of the story is vignettes of Turing Test meeting and befriending the Mane Six, overcoming her awkward mechanical thinking and naivete in the process. In doing so, she slowly begins to experience a range of emotions, thereby becoming a more thoughtful and rounded individual. She eventually wins the favor of everyone in Ponyville and is declared a legal citizen of the village.
She also begins a relationship with Maud Pie, the only one who doesn’t seem to mind that she’s a robot.
In the background, it seems that Celestia is untrusting of Turing Test and extremely cautious about technological advancement in general due to an experience she had a century earlier. An inventor created an automaton that could plow fields. Fearing that automation might one day completely displace many ponies from their lives and livelihoods, she established a policy that greatly slowed technological innovation, leaving Equestria in a largely pre-industrial era.
Slowly, however, Turing Test’s actions begin to warm Celestia to the idea that an a robot can actually feel and think for itself and that perhaps technology isn’t so bad. This comes to a head when she manages to defeat a pair of terrorist cultists named Grace and Glory.
In the meantime, Turing Test’s creators make a few appearances and it seems that they are opposed to Celestia’s rule and the idea of “princesses” in general. They are eventually revealed to be an underground nation called “TechQuestria,” a group devoted to two main goals:
- Re-establishing Equestria as a democracy
- The creation and advancement of new technology at a much faster pace
Unfortunately, they plan to do this through a military attack that might plunge the nation into a civil war that could cost thousands of ponies their lives.
The leader of this group and Turing’s “father” is revealed to be this fellow, Professor Cobbler Mustang:
Professor Mustang is the grandson of the original creator of the farming automaton that Celestia blacklisted. Since then, he’s developed an even greater grudge against her when she interferes with an invention that might have saved the life of his daughter, Georgia Peach:
Distraught over his daughter and using some ancient runic technology as the basis of a new coding system, he creates artificial intelligence in an attempt to copy his dying daughter’s mind into an artificial body. The process fails, but through refining, he manages to create four different robots: Units 001, a silly and childlike robot…
Unit 002, an intelligent and vindictive robot who comes to resent the organic ponies she serves…
Unit 003, Turing Test herself, and Unit 004, the only male in the group, designed for combat and therefore the most powerful in the group.
After Turing Test is kidnapped by 004 and taken to TechQuestria, the gang tracks them down with Gadget’s help. They discover TechQuestria and their plan: to use their mightiest weapon, a gigantic airship equipped with a device that can emulate the Elements of Harmony, to attack Canterlot and depose Celestia.
Though everyone is too late to prevent the invasion, they do manage to make it back to Canterlot and bring the airship down. In the process, Cobbler Mustang, still denying that Turing Test or any of the robots are sapient, is being driven mad by the corruptive influence of the imperfect and misused Elements. He detonates the device, bringing himself and Turing Test into a celestial realm wherein he uses his newly acquired powers to see into Turing’s mind. He realizes that her thoughts and emotions are not simply imitations of a real pony and realizes in turn what a horrible pony he’s become. He relinquishes the power and accepts Turing Test as his daughter.
Turing has a vision of life as an organic being, surrounded by her family - who are also ordinary ponies now - and no different from any other pony and capable of all their sensations.
She is given the choice to stay in the dream or return to reality. She immediately chooses reality, reasoning that even the best fantasy cannot compare to the real value of her friendships.
Equestria, meanwhile, has been unbalanced by TechQuestria’s revolt: Cobbler Mustang is in prison (and glad to serve his debt to society), but many ponies are clamoring for increased technological innovation like that found in TechQuestria and demanding greater influence in the government of their nation. As a compromise, Celestia establishes a new position on her council: the Minister of Technology, a position that will not be filled with a pony of her choosing, but democratically elected. Turing Test, deciding to seize her own destiny, runs for the position and wins.
Though sad to leave her friends, she decides to set out on her own to help Equestria toward a brighter future. The story ends as she leaves for her first day as the Minister of Technology.
Whew! Well, hope that clears things up. Hope that wasn’t too long, but hey, this isn’t too bad for a story that’s 580,000 words long. 
Anyway, that’s it for now! If this seems interesting, please consider reading the whole story, but otherwise you should be ready to read any other “Iron Horse” stories in the series. Enjoy!
This is pretty good story I will try finding time to read all of it. Especially the next installment
4830731
Thanks! I hope you do. It starts off slow, but I'm rather proud of it once it gets past the initial 2 or 3 chapters and introduces Turing Test properly.
Well.....ummmmm.....I WAS planning on restarting this story, as I sort of just dropped it for no reason, but after seeing how complicated it gets, I don't know if I can handle it.
4831618
It's not too terribly complicated. On the downside, the TechQuestria arc is pretty long, more than I'd originally planned, in fact. On the upside, there are some pretty great scenes in there and you get to meet each of Turing's relatives and learn more about their personalities, including fan favorite 002.
Your call, though. :)