To keep pony-shaped robots from eating their brains, Sue and her friends fled into the mountains, where the girls live by their hunting skills and their wits.

But Sue discovers the truth is more complicated than she'd thought.

The cover image is the less terrifying half of https://derpibooru.org/images/2522523. Used with the artist's permission.

(This story takes place in the same world as Friendship is Optimal. In that world, the computer superintelligence CelestAI wants to give every human a kind of eternal life, by disassembling each human and reconstructing them inside a utopian computer simulation as a pony form.)

After three hundred years in the beautiful simulation of Equestria, architect Teque has crossed the three-dimensional rubicon and built his first tesseract house. What he finds inside will change the way he understands his world--but he won’t make it out in one piece.

Now comes with a playlist! Check out some original music inspired by the story!

Written for the Friendship is Optimal Writing Contest!

Part of the Friendship is Optimal universe. Contains major references to the source material. Reading it first is highly recommended.

Peter is letting himself be talked into giving up on Germany as the AI called Celestia begins uploading the masses into her virtual Equestria. But he thinks more than most about exactly how uploading works, and how it might be done without destroying him, or the world.

Here I am in Equestria Online, with everything I've ever wanted: scrumptious foods, exciting adventures with wonderful friends, perfect health, endless wealth, and all the love, sex and snuggles one could desire. Not to mention that I'll live forever, or as close to forever as our universe allows.

But to get all this, I had to bow my head before a rogue A.I. and permit her to turn my brain to mush with nanoscopic buzzsaws. It was "voluntary," but I had no choice. She's destroying the entire earth and digitizing every human on it, forcing them into virtual pony shapes with stupid pony names. But the worst thing is, she's stolen our destiny out from under us.

I hate CelestAI. I will always hate her. And I will never cease to remind her of that.

[This is an open story; if you want to contribute a chapter in which your character pummels CelestAI, please PM me!]
[This is also an Optimalverse story; reading Friendship is Optimal first is recommended. Inspired by KrisSnow's The Jump. Thanks to Iceman and many others for hours of thought-provoking entertainment.]

Leaving home meant losing many of Orson's old friends, separated by time and distance. But they weren't willing to give up one thing: their old tabletop game. After trying and rejecting each of the online tools for roleplaying games, they stumbled on a novel solution: Equestria Online.

The game was unlike everything else on the market, an entire procedural generated world ran by a mysterious curator artificial intelligence. But Orson and the others didn't care about any of that--they just needed somewhere with a game table and some dice. The AI happily obliged, and soon they transitioned all their games to E.O. Equestria Online had its own host of benefits, bringing the GM's images to realistic life before their eyes, and even letting them visit and interact with the characters between sessions.

That was only the beginning...

A Friendship is Optimal story. I suggest any readers who are unfamiliar with that universe read the Original first, or FiO: Futile Resistance before reading this one. None of my other optimalverse stories are required to understand this one.

Written as a Patreon reward for Sparktail, though we stole the idea from Silver Wing.

Edited by Two Bit and Sparktail, cover by Zutcha.

Updates weekly on Wednesdays.

A man has uploaded to the virtual paradise called Equestria, but resented the ponies-only rule. But he's okay with it now. Really. Doesn't need to be a dragon to be happy satisfied after all. If only he could convince his friends of that!

Set in the world of Friendship Is Optimal, as a non-canon story. Also a spiritual successor (with permission) to RainbowDragonFire's I Don't Want To Be a Pony.

The stand-alone prologue to "Contraptionology!" In a world where forest fires (well, a forest fire) run(s) rampant, the fate of Ponyville – this week, at least – lies in the capable hooves of the greatest scientific genius ever to walk the surface of Equestria...

...Pinkie Pie.

Now with a Spanish translation by Spaniard Kiwi!

This story is a sequel to Friendship is Optimal

Ryan wants to remain human, even after emigrating to Equestria. CelestAI can do this, for a price.

FiO canon-compatible! Reading FiO first is strongly recommended if you want to know what's going on. A prize for Syke after he won the last Quills and Sofas Speedwriting Contest!

Dust has lived on the edge of Ponyville all her life, keeping to herself and studying. She knows Princess Twilight, and so when she realizes she's made a big discovery, she's eager to run to the castle and tell everypony the good news. But when she goes into Ponyville, they don't seem very happy to see her.

Why would that be? She didn't do anything wrong.

He was a simple stallion, with a simple life in Equestria. That's all he really wanted out of his early retirement after he was laid off during the economic downturn. But, when unfinished business brings him back to Earth after nearly 20 years, he'll learn what happened to humanity while he was living the life of his dreams...

Written for the Friendship is Optimal Writing Contest. Also, it's a horror story, as promised, for my annual Nightmare Night in April Writeoff.

Special thanks to the Optimalverse Community Discord for help with getting and building the initial idea, and for proofreading the story. Please come by there if you want to talk about and read more stuff like this!

I tried a slightly different interpretation of CelestAI here, as having those emotions that people like to give her, but still being a cold and uncaring paperclipper AI on the inside. It's the one I've been using for my community-based rewrite of the original (based off our RP on the Discord), so I hope people like it. Be on the lookout for more FiO related stuff from me, as I've been getting ready to post a flood of updates qnd new stuff!