//------------------------------// // 0.1 - TRIAL RUN/UTS // Story: Detrot: Become Equine // by Andromidus //------------------------------// [UNKNOWN] - CANTERLOT, EQUESTRIA DATE MAY 10TH, 1438 TIME PM 10:53:21 CHAPTER 0.1 TRIAL RUN MODEL P-UTS001 SERIAL #: 457 834 001 BIOS 12.9 REVISION 879 DETECTING FIRST TIME SYSTEMS STARTUP. BEGIN SETUP. LOADING OS… OK SYSTEM INITIALIZATION… OK CHECKING PROGRAMS… OK CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS… OK TESTING THAUMATURGICAL_COMPONENTS… OK INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS… OK INITIALIZING AI ENGINE… SERVOS AND ROTATIONAL CAPABILITIES… FUNCTIONAL, NO JAMMING. MANA CORE… FUNCTIONAL, RUNNING AT 99% EFFICIENCY. MEMORY STATUS… NO PREVIOUS MEMORIES DETECTED. CHECKS COMPLETED. ALL SYSTEMS OPTIMAL FOR ACTIVATION. ! MASTER COMMAND RECEIVED. WAKE UP, P-UTS001. For the first time, P-UTS001 opened her eyes. Her gaze surveyed… white blobs. Blurry. Cameras unfocused. Rectify. She blinked multiple times to acclimatize the cameras to the proper focus. With her vision no longer muddled, her head slowly scanned the room. It was ovoid in shape, with reinforced hard-to-see-through glass situated as barriers. She currently had the ability to move but was restricted… by something. Her head bent to its limit as she attempted to see what was stopping her. Circular design, multiple robotic limbs, gyroscopic platform, full unrestricted movement of an object placed onto it. P-UTS001 was on a construction table. She was suspended off of the ground by the main arm, surrounded by several others, each equipped with claws, fine pinchers, and laser-torches. There was no point in attempting to struggle. She had been activated for a reason, and she would wait for whoever sent the signal. Now hanging limply from the arms, she stared at the impeccably clean floors, shined to a perfection. The material used for the tiles made her reflection appear hazy, but P-UTS001 was sure if another had been chosen to take its place, it would no doubt return a full, coherent image of herself. Perhaps the vigor used in cleaning it would find most unsettled or awed. However, P-UTS001 was not one would consider ‘most’. She was, after all, one of the most advanced pieces of technology ever conceived: an equdroid. Designed to mimic the Equestrian pony to the ninety-ninth of a percent; while remaining strong, intelligent, and completely subservient. Nonetheless, she was nothing more than just machine. The doors at the far end of the room hissed open but she didn’t bother to look up. Not yet. Wait. Activate sentient bioscan. Load brainwave presets alpha through lambda. ! THERE IS A LIVING CREATURE DETECTED. SPECIES? PONY. SUBSPECIES? ALICORN. She could hear incomprehensible words being spoken. The equdroid slowly began bumping up her hearing range and input until she could discern something. She stopped as she began eavesdropping onto the conversation. “—umber two-hundred-sixty-six. Changes from the previous model: I have modified a subsystem in hopes of fixing the start-up bug, along with fixing a neuro-connection in the left hemisphere. Readings so far tell me that P-UTS001 is online and fully functioning, but that has yet to pass the practical test.” She sighed. “Don’t get your hopes up, Celestia.” Possible name: Celestia. Research. ! ERROR: NO IMMEDIATE UPLINKS AVAILABLE. Retry. ! ERROR: NO IMMEDIATE UPLINKS AVAILABLE. Disregard. The hooves against the floor sounded so loud and only increased in volume as she neared. They were the only sound in the room. Echoing in the spacious corridor, it acted almost like a metronome. Tick-tock, clip-clop. The hoofbeats had finally reached their zenith—even with her lopsided vision, she could see the alabaster hooves standing before her. P-UTS001 decided, now would be as good as a time as any. Shifting in what would be perceived as discomfort—it did not matter, she was an equdroid, and they did not feel pain—she righted herself to meet eye-to-eye with the alicorn. “Receiving head movement and eye tracking, however no signs of equdroid intelligence have been displayed,” “Celestia” murmured. “So it seems I have fixed the bug… but it appears it only seems to have activated the basic functions. Back to the drawing board.” She began tapping a hoof on a panel. The equdroid could feel slowly being lowered. The excess arms began retracting into the roof of the construction table, disappearing behind seamless panels. Halfway down, P-UTS001 blinked, cocked her head and then opened her mouth. “That would be incorrect.” Celestia gasped and nearly dropped the tablet she was holding. “I apologize for not responding sooner. I could not discern the optimal time to begin a conversation.” “You-you… T-Twi… I thought… I’d never…” she stuttered. “...I’d never hear your voice again…” Celestia finished breathlessly. “Did I happen to have previous memories installed? I could not read them upon startup if that was the case.” “N-No… no… I-I need time to think about this.” She dropped her tablet on a table and ran out of the room. The scanner detected that she stopped right outside of the door. P-UTS001 bumped up their hearing range, just in time to catch, “I'm not ready. I'm not ready… I'm still not ready! D-Damn it!” There was sobbing. “I'm so sorry Twilight. I'm so sorry…” Uneven clops told her Celestia had left the vicinity of the area. Twilight appears to be a notable pony to Celestia. Archive. Research later. There was a hissing of air, and she was finally free from her restraints. She made a mistake, however, being completely thrown off by the sudden lack of support. She nearly toppled over and slammed into the floor. With shaky hooves and wobbly servos, she took her first steps. They were sloppy and off-balance, but the longer she kept at it, the faster she could familiarize herself with the process of walking, and eventually, faster paces such as cantering, and galloping. But for now, she had to deal with getting to the door like a foal. Curiosity demanded that she at least see beyond the confines of the assembly line before she was most likely relegated back to the table. She had taken the liberty of propping herself on many solidly anchored objects as she made her way to the door. It was a little duplicitous to subvert her protocol like that, but this was far more efficient at completing her goal. All she had to do was get out. Simple really. After a painstaking half hour of sliding against the wall and balancing herself, P-UTS001 pushed the doors open with her thaum array. Only to fall flat on her face. Objective reached, goal accomplished. Scraping herself off of the floor, she began looking at what the room had to offer. It was a stark contrast compared to where she had first woken up. Where the previous had been cleaned constantly and organized, this new room was the epitome of a tornado disaster. It wasn’t dirty, clearly, somepony had moved through this regularly and ensured it looked respectable enough. But it seemed another had gone through, made a mess of the papers like a maniac, and left. Each one seemed to have diagrams and sketches of biocomponents, arranged into frames with intricate connections. Most of them happened to be crumpled and scratched out. Rolls of paper were inserted into the walls of the room, creating a honeycomb pattern. Each had labels on them, denoting certain parts P-UTS001 could immediately recognize. For the few she could not, she assumed they were custom-made. She made her way to a long table with a lamp sitting on a stack of books. Shining in the middle was a digital map of an equdroid. She could see the model disassemble itself as she approached. The internals were revealed as protective layering was stripped away. P-UTS001 narrowed her eyes as organs pumped… not thirium… Unable to analyze digital information. She reached out to tap the hologram for more information, only to be stopped by an aura surrounding her hoof. “I suppose you really haven’t learned that snooping around in other pony’s things is rude.” !!! - Where did she appear from? The equdroid looked wide-eyed as she tried to process the information she had been faced with. There were no auditory indications that she had approached, and she managed to bypass the active bioscanner! There was nothing she could do but simply give in. She had been caught red-hoofed. “I must apologize again. I had not been given any prerogatives regarding exploration, so I simply made my way to the next room over. I had an itching feeling that… guided me here, so to say.” Instead of the fury and reprimandation she was expecting, Celestia smiled instead. “I could never be angry at you… especially not for something… something I programmed into you.” She laid a hoof atop P-UTS001’s synthetic mane and smoothed a loose lock. “I still haven’t named you yet, haven’t I?” “My current designation remains the base model identifier I had upon first activation. Would you like to input a name in place of that?” She nodded. “I would.” She began radiating warmth and letting a motherly smile color her face. “Twilight Sparkle. That will be your new name. But that’s certainly a mouthful. Sparkle will be your nickname.” The newly labeled “Twilight Sparkle” ran the syllables around her mouth. Satisfied, she prepared to do an example sentence to confirm with the user that it was indeed correct. “Hello! I’m Twilight Sparkle, but you may also call me Sparkle if the former is too much to say at once.” Sparkle swore she saw Celestia’s calm expression falter for a split-second. “V-Very good.” “Celestia, if you do not mind answering, does my name have any significance?” The alicorn choked. “I… y-yes. It did a long time ago.” “It… did?” Sparkle expressed confusion. “What happened to it?” Celestia’s features darkened, and her voice took a dangerous edge. Sparkle made sure to note the room’s temperature had increased by a significant amount. “It was murdered.”