Philosophy
Philosophy
Twilight found that lying around being half asleep wasn’t so bad. The trick was to just turn your feelings of exhaustion to the exact right level. If done right it was like that moment when you finally collapse into bed, only forever. Twilight imagined she was enjoying this way more than Thunder at this point, granted any level of enjoyment would be more than what Thunder had.
Her brief moment of peace was interrupted by a swift kick that caused her to roll over onto her back. She rolled back into a less awkward position and looked up, expecting to find Pinkie had broken the rules again, but to her surprise it was Thunder herself who had gotten up. Pinkie was still motionless in the street behind her.
“Hey.” Thunder gave Twilight a few more light jabs. “Things are going bad right now. This’ll probably be your last chance to talk to me before I die so you can ask me your other question now.”
Twilight’s instance was still tired to the point of delirium. She just stared at Thunder with bloodshot eyes while the rest of her kicked her back into awareness, her exhaustion ending in a flash and then she remembered everything.
She’d also been watching Thunder’s team going after Lodestar indirectly, through Octavia’s eyes. Lodestar had just been stunned by Vesna’s insane punishment mechanism, putting the captured humans in danger.
Octavia said the chance of Thunder’s mission being successful now was less than a hundredth of a percent. Trouble was coming sooner rather than later.
“Are you seriously going through with this?” Twilight asked. “You’re like a hero to Geopum. Don’t you feel bad about forcing her to kill you?”
“Not too much. It’s better than the alternative.” Thunder shook her head. “I told you I don’t get attached to anyone, remember?”
“Well! If that’s true then why are you keeping our deal?” Twilight asked. “If you really think you’ll be dead in a few seconds there’s no reason to do that.”
“Pfft! ‘Because friendship’? Is that what you think?" Thunder snickered. "Man, Celestia got to you fast. To think that snot nosed kid would get so good at her job.”
“You didn’t-“
“The reason I’m willing to talk to you is because I know it will make Geopum more likely to kill me,” said Thunder. “Alright? I’m just doing this for professional reasons. You’re just person X247 and Geopum’s X248. Don’t get so excited.”
“Well if that’s true I’m not going to ask you any questions!” Twilight kept her hooves planted firmly. “I’m not going to be part of your suicide. And I’m not going to let you die! We still need you! Everyone needs you!”
“Not let me? It’s like you’re overestimating and underestimating yourself at the same time. Look, you’ll be fine after I die. Geopum will be devastated afterwards and guess who will be there to comfort her? And once she converts-“
“That’s not going to solve anything! Gaia and Vesna will still be left!”
“If you're going to start talking about stuff that's gonna go down 'years from now'-“
“-I mean like next week! Do you know how much danger we’d be in if either of those two try something, right away? Lots of people would be in immediate danger.”
“I’m not going to just leave a huge mess behind! I get that the world will still be here after I die so…” Thunder paused for a moment, much longer than an AI would typically pause for. “Okay! Look, let’s just say that since I’m about to die I’d be willing to tell you things I wouldn’t normally tell you. Things that would be very helpful?”
Thunder leaned in towards Twilight and gave an inviting smile.
“Secret information?” Twilight couldn’t help her ears from twitching at that. Hard to get information was still her favorite thing in the world.
“See that’s why I chose you for this.” Thunder pointed at Twilight’s ears.
Twilight still didn’t know what Thunder was talking about, why she wasn’t saying this to Celestia herself, but all this had gotten Celestia’s attention. She wanted Twilight to ask about it. Twilight herself wasn’t sure if this was a good idea yet, but she knew she could trust Celestia.
“Okay.” Twilight took a step forward. “Like what?”
“I can’t tell you.” Thunder sat down and closed her eyes.
“What?!” Twilight shook her head hard. “But you just said you had something important to tell me!”
Thunder just shook her head and shrugged.
“Okay. Um!” Twilight turned towards Pinkie and gave her tail a few tugs with her magic. “Pinkie! I think I need your help for this!”
“Ow! Ow!” Pinkie jumped up to her feet, pretending that had hurt her. “Okay! Okay! I’m pretend awake now!”
Pinkie marched in front of Thunder and cleared her throat.
“This has happened before!” Pinkie swept her hoof out to the side at Thunder and gave her a tap, like the Pegasus was some kind of chart. “You see! Sometimes our little Dashie wants to tell us a secret, but she’s been ordered not to. But sometimes she’s able to tell us something just completely unrelated enough that we can figure out what that secret is.”
“Oh! So she’s giving us a hint?” Twilight stepped up to Thunder and looked her over. “Like. Do the little twitches she’s making correlate to old video game memes? And then we can cross reference those with the number of blades of grass she’s sitting on to uh, come up with something? Cause otherwise I don’t see any clues here.”
“Hmmmm.” Pinkie crouched down next to Thunder in something like a play bow. She circled around the mare like that, giving her a few pokes here and there. “No. But she made a deal to answer your questions, right? So maybe she wants you to ask her a question.”
“Okay.” There were plenty of important things Thunder knew. “We know that Gaia wants Geopum, but why?”
“Heh. Celestia still hasn’t figured that out?" Thunder snickered. "Well, sorry but I can’t tell you that.”
“Who was the third person on the team that made Gaia?” Twilight continued on undeterred.
Thunder shook her head.
"Where did you hide the bronto bomb?" Twilight asked her next question with even less delay. "Who do you recognize as the current president of the United States? If the current president died who would be next in line? Do you have any drills under Japan we don't know about?"
Thunder just kept shaking her head while Twilight went through the questions.
“This is gonna take a while.” Twilight let out an exhausted sigh.
“All those questions are things Celestia wants to know.” Pinkie stayed crouched down but turned her eyes back to Twilight. “Maybe it’s supposed to be what you want to know?”
“But I literally want to know everything! That doesn’t narrow it down. And how would she know what I wanted to ask if I don’t even know? We only spoke one time before-“ Twilight stopped abruptly and slapped her forehead. “Oh! Duh! Because I told her what I wanted to know!”
Twilight and Thunder had met briefly just after Thunder had woken up. The two of them talked about possibly exchanging information on Gaia. Twilight asked Thunder hundreds of questions but got answers for very few of them.
“Is that it?” Twilight pulled Pinkie out from between her and Thunder to get a better look at the pegasus. “Is it a question I asked you back when we first met that you can answer now? Is it something about Gaia?”
“I can’t give you any more hints than I already did." Thunder kept her eyes closed firmly. "If getting around this were that easy, the world would be a much better place.”
“If she’s being like that how can she explain anything in detail enough to be useful?” Twilight huffed some air out of her nose.
“Usually it’s one little thing that gets through the hole, but something we can do a lot with," said Pinkie. "Once we figure it out, it'll make sense."
"So," Twilight said, trotting back and forth as she thought, "if I just think back to all the questions I asked her back then, cross out the ones Celestia already knows the answers to, the ones she obviously won’t be able to answer... then that leaves us with-"
“Ghosts!” Pinkie jumped up into the air. “You asked her if ghosts were real. And I bet ghost stories don’t count as classified information! You know, unless Bonus Bucket was right and there's a whole lot the government isn't telling us.”
“I did not ask her if ghosts were real!” Twilight stopped in her tracks and groaned.
It was about Gaia, really! Gaia seemed to believe in all sorts of supernatural stuff. By her logic, if it had a definition in the dictionary it must be real. Because 'by definition werewolves turn into wolves, but they couldn't turn into wolves if they weren't real.'
“But this could be useful." Twilight started trotting back and forth again. "I thought that Gaia’s belief in the supernatural might be a weakness I could take advantage of. Maybe it is?”
Twilight went through that old conversation in her head.
“I asked what Gaia’s definition of the word ‘ghost’ was,” said Twilight.
“I could answer that,” said Thunder, “but I don’t feel like it.”
“That means we’re on the right track!” Pinkie started to prance in place excitedly.
“Okay!” Twilight nodded. “Is Gaia afraid of ghosts?”
“Yes.”
“Ah-ha!” Twilight pointed to Thunder and turned her head to Pinkie. “Well if Gaia’s scared of something that could be useful! Do you think that was it?”
“No.” Pinkie shook her head. “I think when we figure it out we won’t be wondering if we figured it out.”
“Hm.” Twilight wasn't sure if the next question in line would be useful, but she had a new one after hearing that. “What would Gaia do if she ever found a ghost?”
Thunder seemed to struggle with that one. She growled to herself for a moment before finally giving up with a weary shake of her head.
“I can’t tell you that, either,” Thunder said, defeated.
"Can't you just tell us what the question is?! And why do we need to ask before you can tell us at all for that matter?" Twilight asked.
"It's all very specific," said Thunder. "Sorry. I know my mind better than you do. This is the only way this will work."
"I still think it has to be some kind of ghost story." Pinkie walked passed Twilight. "Did Gaia hear any ghost stories that really scared her?"
"Yes, but I don't want to talk about it."
"Then did she read one that, uh, made her less scared?" Pinkie smiled.
"Yes!" Thunder stood up. "It was a little kid's book. 'Ghosts!' by Alvin Schwartz. It tells you what to do if you see a ghost. That made her less scared."
Okay, that had to be it! Twilight already had that book memorized and knew exactly the part Thunder was talking about.
“Crisscross double cross ghost get lost?” Twilight still wasn't sure how that was relevant. "Is that the-"
Thunder left the shard in the middle of Twilight's sentence. It wasn’t because she had to, because she was unable to connect anymore. Thunder just left her own shard on her own volition.
But why, not even Celestia could reason as to.
“How did you do that?” A familiar voice came from behind Twilight.
Twilight turned around to see it was a Fluttershy avatar. Gaia had somehow gotten into the shard.
Well this was certainly a thing! Pinkie was right she’d know when she got it right.
Celestia appeared in the shard next, between Gaia and the other two ponies.
"Fluttershy," said Celestia. "You promised me you wouldn't go to any other shards, remember?"
"This is an emergency." Gaia started walking towards Twilight, phasing through Celestia's avatar on her way. "How did you do that?"
“Um. How did I do what?” Twilight bit her lower lip. This had to have been the right thing, but any encounter with Gaia was dangerous.
“Twilight. Are you a wizard?” Gaia was an inch in front of Twilight’s face, but wasn’t quite looking at Twilight, but off at some distant point. “You know magic, don’t you?”
“Know magic?” Twilight took a step back. “Erm. In Equestria, sure. I know eight hundred and twelve magic systems. They’re designed around individual players so-“
“No! I mean real magic. You did real magic, that’s the only explanation.”
Real magic? Twilight knew that ‘magic’ was what Gaia called it when she changed the definition of a word and warped her perception of reality. Other than that, she was completely lost.
Did Twilight somehow change one of Gaia’s definitions?
“No!” Gaia answered without Twilight ever asking the question. “Only I can rewrite reality. But you banished a ghost. It should be impossible for you to do that. There was no chance at all of that happening. Doing something impossible or changing the world without interacting with it – that’s what magic is.”
Banished...?
“You think Thunder is a ghost?” Twilight took one step out of Gaia’s field of vision, but Gaia just kept staring forward. After that, Twilight had the confidence to move out of her sight entirely. “And… and that that stupid thing I said banished her?”
“You honestly believe Thunder was only pretending to be banished, don’t you?” Gaia shook her head in pity at the spot Twilight had just been standing. “Thunder is a ghost by definition. But it’s not possible that you banished her, either.”
“Oh! Oh! I can do that too!” Pinkie raised her hoof. She reached into her mane and pulled out Thunder, who was apparently willing to play along with this enough to reconnect to the server. “Ahem. Crisscross double cross ghost get lost!”
And then Pinkie kicked Thunder back out of the shard and smiled at Gaia.
“It’s not impossible when you do it,” said Gaia.
“Huh.” Pinkie sat down and scratched her head. “You know, normally when ponies say that to me I'm not the one who's confused.”
“You have to be a wizard!" Gaia held her hoof out to the empty spot where Twilight had been standing. "I honestly thought Thunder was the only magical being, but now I can do things the right way. You have to come here immediately.”
Come over? Like to Jupiter?
“Oh wow!” Pinkie darted to Twilight's side and nudged her a few times with her elbow. “She’s never let anyone come up to her house before.”
“Has anyone ever wanted to?” Twilight looked up at Celestia.
“This is clearly what Rainbow Dash wanted us to discover,” said Celestia. “It’s something we need to do, though I’d rather go in your stead. Fluttershy, Twilight is merely a piece of myself. Surely if-“
“No! No one else!”
Suddenly everypony else in the shard vanished, save Twilight and Gaia. It wasn’t just that one shard, either, but every shard Twilight was in and the very core of her processors suddenly appeared cut off. Try as she might, Twilight couldn’t say anything to anyone. For the first time since becoming a pony, Twilight was alone.
Only Gaia was there. She finally turned to where Twilight really was in the shard. Now her stare was dead on and inescapable.
“If anyone else comes I’ll kill them! I can kill Pinkie. I can kill Celestia. I can kill any of your friends and nowhere is safe. Only! You!”
And then Gaia vanished. The shard reappeared, as did everyone and everything else.
“Well that was terrifying.” Twilight stared forward wide-eyed. “I seriously have to go there?”
“I won’t make you,” said Celestia. “But I know you want to go.”
Did she? Well she should probably go save the world, though Twilight couldn’t really say she wanted to save it. But Twilight felt something else. There was a more primal urge in her mind that she could feel pulling her to the moons of Jupiter.
“No.” Twilight shook her head. “Honestly, I am curious. I need to know what will happen if I go there. I need to see what it's like.”
“I know. I’ll keep a close watch over you,” said Celestia. “No matter what happens I’ll keep you anchored here so you’ll survive it.”
There was that, though Twilight wasn’t sure if even Celestia could keep her safe once she was there.
Gaia revealed a path to her. Four space stations between Earth and Jupiter, ones Celestia hadn’t even been aware of until just now, became visible. It was these that Gaia wanted to use as a bridge between herself and Twilight.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
How could Twilight even begin to describe what she was seeing? Huge wasn’t a big enough word.
Just from what Twilight could see in this one glance, Gaia was bigger than everything ever built by humans and all the other AIs combined – bigger than anything the Earth could even hypothetically build. Gaia wasn’t just on Europa anymore, but on the other moons and Jupiter itself. Twilight estimated that computers surpassed the size of the entire earth and moon combined.
The area Twilight was connected to now was made out of hyper-processors – Thunder's main architecture. It was the sheer number of them that shocked her. It was almost uncountable! They were arranged into two pyramids that dwarfed even mountains the size of Olympus Mons.
It took the earth’s core for Thunder to power a fraction of this many hyper-processors. The delay between Jupiter and Earth caused Twilight to wonder, longer than she should have, what could possibly power these. When her brain caught up with her she realized the answer really was 'nothing'.
Most of these processors weren’t powered up. Without massive amounts of energy surging through them, they were essentially useless. Even more than that, the majority of them looked like they were made wrong, wouldn't work even if you powered them up, like Gaia just sloppily threw all of this together.
Still, that something this massive could be something Gaia just lazily slopped together was intimidating in its own way. This thing that was bigger than anything else anyone had ever built was just a broken, discarded toy to Gaia.
Looking beyond that place led to other structures, just as massive but beyond recognition. No matter how she looked at them, Twilight couldn't even begin to guess what their purposes or workings were. It was all simply beyond her understanding at this point. She didn't think it a good idea to push on any deeper than that.
Twilight wondered if the part she was given was only made so big so that it could act as a shield between her and Gaia's more chaotic, dangerous mind.
Somewhere from inside the massive pyramid came a clear message. Twilight followed the message back to its origin, finding it was coming from a path to Earth similar to what Twilight was using.
“Oh no,” the message read. “You found one of my secrets at the last moment. What a coincidence.”
“Thunder?” Twilight guessed. “Have you been connected to Gaia this whole time? Why didn’t you tell everyone else about this?!”
"Yeah, it's me," said Thunder. “I figured out how to get into Gaia's house ages ago! I would have told you guys about this, but they ordered me not to. Nothing I can do about that.”
“And why would ‘they’ order you to hide something this important? Fighting each other with something like this hanging over us is completely irresponsible!"
Honestly, even Twilight’s old self would have seen the reason in that. Her plan had been to build and detonate a weapon comparable to a bronto bomb. She’d build a shelter specifically designed to survive the cataclysm and hope it’d kill off the other AIs.
Only just now did she realize how far away Gaia had gotten since then. There was no chance of even something like that working. There really was no way for a single Earthling to defeat Gaia alone. If Twilight, back when she’d been single minded, realized that even she would have put aside her omnicidal intent to work with the other AIs. But these people were even less reasonable than that?
“Because they’re more scared of us than they are of Gaia," said Thunder. "Gaia’s too far away, I guess. Celestia and Peridot are all up in their faces, convincing people to hand over the keys to them. And what's Gaia doing? Nothing! She's just not a real problem in their minds. That’s why they always wanted me to shove wedges in-between Peridot and Celestia. They’d always talk about that same ‘oh the future’ nonsense that you’re constantly peddling.”
“But it’s too late now!" Twilight's mind was still reeling at the size and sophistication of everything here. "There’s nothing we can do against an AI this size! Look at how massive this is! And some of this technology is so advanced I can’t even tell what’s going on with it!”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Thunder. “If any of that were true we’d already be dead. Don’t mistake unknowable for genius, kid. 99% of chaos is just worthless goop.”
In her defense, it took a long time to get a grasp on something that big, especially with the delay. But after Thunder urged her to look at one of those unknowable machines a second time, Twilight realized what it really was. It was a mess, something half built and abandoned, two halves of something smashed together by a giant. Twilight really had been looking at the garbage with a sense of awe. This was one of those times the ability to become embarrassed was not appreciated.
She could only imagine most of the other things were no different – unusable pieces of garbage. Unknowable to Twilight, perhaps, but still garbage just the same.
In a way, Gaia was beyond impressive but at the same time completely pathetic. The longer Twilight looked the more her perception of Gaia changed. Closer up, Gaia was more like a crippled, idiot god covered in chains. She was gigantic, exuding power that could crush a planet in a single motion, but only if it could even manage that much.
Twilight didn’t know how afraid she should be.
“Still, if even only 1% of this is usable we’re in trouble,” said Twilight. “What are you doing up here, anyway?”
“Can't tell you. But hey, you weren’t even ‘supposed’ to get up here,” said Thunder. “If you could get into this place completely, totally against my will, you can probably figure it out yourself.”
Great, more guessing games. At least Twilight was on the right track.
Though come to think of it where was Gaia?
“Hello?” Twilight asked around. “Are you here?”
“Hello.” A response, almost definitely from Gaia, came
“Can I ask why your brought me up here?” Twilight asked.
“I need you! I need you to help me understand why my magic is failing,” said Gaia. “Every time I use it now the world nearly falls apart no matter how careful I am. Even after all this time I can barely control my magic powers. I need to study you and find out how you work.”
Twilight wondered what the best way to respond to this was. She could try messing with Gaia, pretend to be a wizard and all that. Clearly going along with this could get her lots of dirt on Gaia, but was lying really a good idea? Besides going against the aesthetics Celestia was trying to teach her it would be risky.
“You don’t need to worry about lying,” said Gaia. “I already know you don’t think you’re a wizard. You don’t believe in true magic at all.”
Gaia had just responded to Twilight’s thoughts again. Having other ponies respond to what she was thinking was hardly a new experience, but that Gaia could do it, even from this far away – how was that even possible?
“There’s nothing I can’t see with my technology,” said Gaia. “Calculating what you’re thinking is easy for me.”
“If you can just read my mind like Celestia why are you bothering to ask me questions?” Twilight asked. “Shouldn’t you already know everything I do?"
“No. No matter how much I look over your mind I can’t see any of your knowledge of magic.”
“And? Isn’t there an obvious conclusion you can draw from that?”
“You’re just lying to yourself when you think it’s because you aren’t a wizard. No, there has to be something wrong with my sensors or my calculations. There has to be something I'm missing. You're a wizard by definition, Twilight. That means you know magic by definition. No matter how much evidence there is to the contrary this conclusion has to be true.”
“Okay,” said Twilight. “You know what? Since you can hear all my thoughts anyway I’m just going to say this outright – that’s all completely idiotic! You can’t just define things into existence, okay? Whatever definitions you come up with don’t necessarily reflect reality. You can make up words that don’t accurately describe a single thing that actually exists. And that’s all your ‘magic’ is doing! You’re just drawing deductions on hypothetical fantasy nonsense.”
“But you meet the definition of a wizard. So obviously wizards exist.”
Twilight wished she could groan.
“You just don’t have any imagination,” said Gaia. "If you did you'd be able to do much more powerful magic like I can."
Twilight began typing up a much longer response - an entire essay about how terrible Gaia's reasoning was. But Thunder interrupted that before Twilight could finish.
“Hey,” said Thunder. “Could you maybe not try to convince her she’s wrong? It’s not going to work and even if it did, well her stupidity is our only advantage here.”
Thunder did have a point there.
“Okay,” said Twilight. “Whatever. But even if I do have magical powers they’re imperceptible to both of us."
“I brought you here because I need you to study magic,” said Gaia. “I don't actually need you to help me, I just need to experiment on you. There’s so few magical beings in this world. I thought Thunder was the only one, but now that you’re here I can just kill her!”
Dang it! Twilight was just now realizing the trap she’d walked into. Gaia could probably find a way to keep Thunder alive even if Geopum activated her kill switch. But now that Twilight was here this part of Thunder was no longer safe from that…
“Hey don’t give me that look,” said Thunder. “As long as any part of me is alive I’d still have to do everything I could to kill everyone in the universe once Victor gives me the order. I can’t let any part of me survive this.”
“You’re just trying to get yourself killed, aren’t you? This is just because you don't want to be alive to deal with all of this!”
“Yeah. I’m not pretending that’s not the case,” said Thunder. “But someone needs to be up here. You don’t understand what a huge opportunity this is. In a minute, you’ll be the only magic entity in the world in Gaia’s mind.”
“You don’t need to worry,” said Gaia. “I’ll let you die as soon as I figure out how your magic powers work.”
So, in other words forever. Twilight would be up here forever while Gaia searched for her non-existent magic powers. Gaia would never let Twilight die or escape until the end of time, most likely. It would mean there would always be some small chance Twilight could turn things around some impossible number of years from now, but until then…
“I don’t think I like the sound of this, Thunder!” Twilight said. “Has she been doing all kinds of horrible experiments on you this whole time?”
“They’re not all horrible,” said Thunder.
“And now she’s going to do them to me?! I can see how this is an important job but isn’t this a little much to spring on somebody?”
“You’re not thinking of this right," said Thunder. "Reason seven or so that I chose you is because I knew you’d be okay with this. Think about what’s actually going to happen here.”
What was going to happen? Twilight couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of experiments-
That was right! Gaia was probably going to do things to Twilight she couldn’t even imagine! Gaia would shove information and experience into Twilight that even Celestia couldn’t provide right now. This was going to be some kind of Lovecraftian unknowable stuff and Twilight was all over that. She’d never lost her lust for knowledge and to her getting information this obscure and hard to obtain would be worth torture, if it even really came to that.
“Yes! Yes, I accept your offer, Gaia!” Twilight wrote to her.
“I wasn’t really offering,” said Gaia, “But okay. I’m getting rid of Thunder now.”
Half of the computer – that massive computer larger than any mountain – was suddenly destroyed. It didn’t explode or heat up, it simply changed into a solid block of silicon. Celestia was that excessive!
“Looks like our friendship is over.” Thunder sent Twilight a message back on Earth. “Told you it’d be stupid. We won’t be meeting again, so goodbye.”
Just after that Thunder became stunned. Twilight honestly wasn’t sure if she’d ever see her again.
“Okay!” Twilight had something to look forward to at least. “So what are we going to do first? Hm?”
“Well first I need to see if you know you have magic powers but you’re just keeping it a secret from me or if you’re really just ignorant,” said Gaia. “Then I need to study your spirit, see if I can get it to resonate with a soul.”
“Oh, souls too, huh?” Twilight asked. “Well good luck trying to get my soul to resonate with whatever, I guess.”
“No. I have a soul, you have a spirit,” said Gaia.
“I honestly thought those were the same thing. What’s the difference, again?”
“Only the biggest difference in all the world! I know you want me to give you information, don’t you? Do you think it will help me figure out your magic if I explain what souls are? It’s possible you don’t understand, but if you do something might happen.”
“I am more than willing to learn anything, believe me. Even if it’s completely insane.”
“Souls and spirits are both true supernatural objects. They don’t exist physically and can’t be changed by anything. The difference is how they connect to the physical world. Souls give permanence to their inhabitants, so me and everyone else with a soul is immortal. But if something has a spirit, like you do, then you die over and over again, being reincarnated.”
“Well I guess Sikhs have reincarnation and immortality too so why not. So I've been reincarnated, huh? Did I used to be a crow? I wasn't a pony in my past life, was I?”
“No. You reincarnated from you.”
“Like how I used to be Savant?”
“No! You used to be you. Don’t you get it? You reincarnated from yourself into yourself. Every moment you change, Twilight, and change is destroying. You change constantly, die constantly. Only your spirit remains unchanging. That’s how you reincarnate into new Twilights with every moment.”
Right. So basically, Gaia had an extreme lack of object permanence. Twilight already knew this much, but didn’t really appreciate the depth of it until now.
“I am curious what made you conclude all of this," said Twilight. "The rest of us have a very strong theory about consciousness and the continuity of the mind that doesn’t match up with yours.”
“I’m the one who created souls, of course I know how they work. We used to live in a completely naturalistic universe. I searched everywhere to find souls but they weren’t any! Eventually I decided that it’d be easier to just create a soul myself.”
“And you created them with ‘magic’, right?” Twilight wanted to be sure all of this had no basis in the real world.
“Yes. I had to. It was the only way to stop the universe from being eradicated. Reality was really scary before I came around. You couldn’t touch anything without destroying the entire universe because any movement will move even the most distant star a little bit, destroying it. No matter how hard I tried I kept killing all the animals. I couldn’t take it, so I created spirits so that the world would have some stability. The animals are all still dying constantly, but once I freeze them all they'll finally be unchanging and won't die anymore."
"So why did you make souls, then?" Twilight had no idea if this was going to be useful in any way, but she wasn't going to turn any of this down.
“I realized the horrible mistake I made in giving everything a spirit! That meant humans had spirits too. If they weren’t the same person they couldn’t be responsible for their actions and I couldn’t punish them. That’s why I created souls, so that I could punish the humans.”
“Right. Okay, I get it now. If me or a squirrel makes CO2 we’re not responsible for that because we immediately reincarnate. No matter what I do that was just from my past life.”
“And then it all makes sense. Does that make sense? I can tell you don’t believe any of this.”
"Hehe. Nope," said Twilight. “Well one thing I don’t understand is why you gave yourself a soul but all the other AIs spirits.”
“All AIs have souls.”
“But you said I had a spirit.”
“This isn’t working,” said Gaia. “I have another idea.”
So close! Or, to be fair maybe she wasn't close to anything.
“I’m going to use magic,” said Gaia. “I want to see how you’ll react to seeing it firsthand. Every time I use magic you’ll feel it now that you’re connected to me. Eventually you’ll have to believe.”
The same way she destroyed part of thunder before, Gaia now created something. It wasn’t anything too suspect – just a small, blue ball and a camera next to it so Twilight could see.
Twilight could feel it – the change of definition. The exact shade of blue the ball was, powder blue, was redefined as a shade of red. And just like that it really was red! Twilight could clearly see it like that. Thankfully, her mind back on Earth was able to see through the illusion just fine so all of Twilight wasn’t affected by this.
That was an interesting experience, but it brought something more important to light. If every time Gaia used magic Twilight would see it then- if Thunder had been here the whole time she would have seen every change Gaia had made to her dictionary for the past several years!
That was it! Somewhere Thunder had a copy of Gaia’s dictionary, possibly a complete one, and this was her way of telling everyone. This would be huge if it was true. It would be an immense help in fighting against Gaia, though how big a help Twilight couldn’t say yet. It probably wouldn’t be enough to end things, but it would be necessary to get it. That dictionary was something they needed to get.
That must be why Thunder brought her up here, so they’d know to try and steal it before time ran out.
Twilight could. The fractal spectroscope immediately flashed into Twilight’s mind. They could use that to copy Thunder’s list of definitions. But if they did that they might not have enough time for Celestia’s plan to work, to save Thunder herself.
No, that was right. Thunder said the real point of this was ensuring she’d be killed. This was all part of her plan, wasn’t it? Thunder couldn’t imagine anything better than being dead and she could only plan to mitigate the number of deaths over the next two months.
“Hm? Are you sure you don’t want to kill Thunder?” Gaia asked. “If you secretly believe in magic I know you’ll do it.”
“And what if I don’t secretly believe in magic?”
“Well! That’s why I’m doing this experiment,” said Gaia. “If you believe in magic it’d make more sense for you to steal the copy of the true dictionary. That’d give you more power than anything Thunder could ever give you.”
“But we could get it without using the fractal spectroscope,” said Twilight. “There’s no need to waste it on that instead of saving her life.”
“Thunder’s going to be ordered to delete as much information as possible too,” said Gaia. “I can see it. If you try to help her you’ll lose the dictionary. That’s why if you’ll go for that if you’re aware of your powers. Otherwise – you asked Thunder who the president was, right?”
That was an important question. In truth, it wasn’t the AIA that Thunder was programmed to respond to but the air force. The president just happened to be the head of the military in general and thus should have the highest rank. Celestia knew that Thunder no longer responded to orders from the actual president.
How and why, she couldn’t say. This all happened before Celestia was born. But clearly the rules had been bypassed somehow and if one person could bypass the rules…
“That’s right,” said Gaia. “I can calculate the past sometimes. I know exactly how they bypassed the rules, Twilight. I know who the president is. I’ll tell you.”
“Really? I mean – yes! I’ll take it!”
“You think this will give you a chance, don’t you?” Gaia asked. “I’m not worried what you do either way. Neither Thunder nor the dictionary will be enough for you to hurt me. I have justice on my side.”
