The Cost of a Sunrise

by No one is home


A Few More Bits

Cognitive Cog
Log 178.97.3
Subject: “Crusader Mk SB-978”

Mk SB-978 keeps displaying abnormal behavior.  Today it asked me, at the end of the test session, “Am I a machine?”

It was a ridiculous question.  So ridiculous that I… had no idea how to answer.  Can a god create something that can ask a question it’s god cannot answer.  Today, I have established that a pony can.

-=-=-=-=-

“The abomination will only give us her name, rank, and serial number, and demands to be reunited with her, ‘commanding officer’, by whom I believe she means the giant mutant.”  The metallic pony functionary reported to his superior. “For his part, the mutant insists that he doesn’t have a name, and his companions seem to confirm it. The Mirage kissed youth says they mostly just called him ‘big guy’ or ‘just whatever’ at the circus.  The small war crime identifies her ‘commanding officer’, as ‘Error! No Name’. The young colt also swears he’s the heir apparent to a family of famous clown/wizards.”

“I see, I also see in your report that the large mutant denies being the small constructs ‘commanding officer’, as he was stripped of his command for punching General Scorched Earth, am I reading that right, that’s not a common name in what’s left of history…  but his claim is that he was not an officer at the time of her creation, and was never in her imperial chain of command. That used to be a very common war crime defense… a long time ago...” The superior responded nearly tonelessly.

“Yes, under normal circumstances we would release the two adults as well meaning fools, and place the foal up for adoption.  With the state of our current factory, there are many eligible families.” The functionary droned on. “Unfortunately, their story seems to check out.”

-=-=-=-=-

Cognitive Cog
Log 137.83.4
Subject: “Crusader Mk SC-639”

SC-639 is perhaps my most bitter failure to date, and at the same time my greatest success.  She shows neither the crippling morality of the SB model, nor the dangerous tendency to modify her structure and programing I’ve observed in AB-456.  However in addition to her chasis no longer responding to its self-upgrading, resulting in the same growth deficiency as the other two prototypes, she simply cannot fly.  Starless based her design on the body structure of a clockwork pegasus, and the same chassis with a standard remote drone’s processor can fly with no problems at all, however the organic processor cloned from steelheart samples simply cannot interact properly with the flight systems, and at this point I have to admit it is not a programing error but a deficiency in the processor itself.  We ran into similar problems with SB-978, but worked around it by simply installing a laser weapon shaped like a unicorn’s horn. We can’t simply fake something as basic to a pegasus as “flight”. My wife believes she can surmount this difficulty if she can disassemble a functioning steel heart in an early enough stage in development, but I fear the effect this research is having on her. Starless Night has become increasingly… cold… as this project moves forward.

-=-=-=-=-

A massive heap of scarred pony flesh loomed over a small, inert metal filly, the snakes in it’s mouth speaking soothing words.

“It’s going to be okay, we’re going to wake you up,and we’re going to get you the… help. you.. need…”  The serpent trailed off as the giant’s eye wandered to the entrance to the tent.

“So it’s true… you can talk…” The queen interjected.

“Sunrise… I…” The beast stammered.

“You can say my name,”  The ivory queen’s tone slowly turned into pure poison, “That one thing I always said I wished you could say…”

“I’m sorry… I…” The nameless behemoth struggled with the sudden flow of words.

“You could have said my name… The! Whole! Time!”  The queen’s words were lost in a mindless scream.

-=-=-=-=-

“What are you doin’, followin’ me, colt?”  The nameless beast scowled at the clown-faced insectile unicorn.

“I… you were right, about the Sun… about all of it…”  The young clown admitted shamefully. “They’re… I found out… Mr. Deadlift… They’re gonna taxidermy Daisy and Magpie, and Mrs. Margarine too!  Use them as fucking displays! Mr. Deadlift… it’s like he’s dead inside.”

“Stallion’s daughters were murdered.” The giant crashed to his haunches and heaved a heavy sigh.  “Hi wife committed suicide. He’s sick with grief, trying to hold onto what he still can. He’s looked the sun in the eyes… don’t judge him to harsh, boy.”

“I saw it’s gaze too!”  The insectile unicorn grumbled bitterly.  “And it didn’t make me all crazy in the head!”

“It’s gaze is different for every person that meets it.  It’s very personal,” the nameless beast explained, “It drags your most shameful sin across your eyes… Leering Suns… Faith Eaters… we had a lot of names for those damn things before the war.  The signs were all there, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe it, I had to hope that maybe the one good thing the Blaze had done was wipe those abominations from Everglow. The night of the show, the night Ziggy killed the twins, it was undeniable, I just didn’t want to believe it was anything but another one of Sunset’s illusions… something she had seen in an old book.  It got to Ziggy that night… My guess is it’s been slowly picking us off one by one. In our little ‘family’, it’s had plenty of sin to work with...”

-=-=-=-=-

“Where does it end?”  Twilight Sparkle watched the scenes flash by at random as the magic school bus exellerated wildly.

“Well,” Discord shrugged merrily, “if you must know…”

-=-=-=-=-

“This is where it ended… where he ended,” A sad autotuned voice intoned to an avid audience of two, one clock-work, insectile pegasi, and a tiny mechanical foal lazing happily on it’s mother’s back.  “Stone Cross, this city had shunned us for most of our lives… and he died to save it, I think it was the only time I ever heard him laugh in all our time together.”

“He was your… we’ll just go with Grandfather, Kiddo,” the clockwork bug-pony smiled as he explained carefully to his young daughter.

“He said, ‘My name is Blueberry Pastel.’ And then he just laughed,” Bullette Bell crooned sadly in musical autotune, “And it was the happiest, most joyful sound I had ever heard in my whole life.  And then the gods finally repaid their debt, as they knew his had been paid long ago. The Jester gave him back his name, and Soft Whisper came to take him home.”

Bullette pressed her hoof against the name, singular and in a vast litany carved in black marble wall.  “He… I am happy for him. He stood a long watch. He deserved his rest.”

“Why do we come here, mommy?  It always makes you cry.” The little mechanical filly spoke up from her perch on her mother's withers.

“Because, Z-978, we always have to remember where we came from.  The good and the bad. He taught me that… and I forgot that lesson… for a very time…”  The mechanical mare’s autotuned voice rang out sadly, before wildly juxtapositioning into a more cheerful tone.  “He taught me this, and now I’m teaching you. It’s how we cleared the ash. We each learned small lessons. We passed them along to our friends.  We rose above it.”

-=-=-=-=-

“That… actually raised more questions than it answered.”  Thorax stated plainly as the bus pulled into it’s final stop at the School of Friendship.

“Thank you,” The lord of chaos replied with a sincere smile, “I do try my best.”

“Oh, just one thing,” Twilight smiled sweetly as she stepped off the bus, “Discord, your chaperone provilleges are definitely, most permanently revoked.”