//------------------------------// // With What Was Left // Story: Harmony of Machines // by CreeperZone //------------------------------// *The dragon stands tall in the chasm, looking down on you with its fiery red eyes... You have mere seconds before it smashes you to smithereens, what do you do? {ATTACK THE DRAGON BEFORE IT CAN ATTACK YOU.} {SPEAK WITH THE DRAGON.} {FLEE.} ... >SPEAK WITH THE DRAGON.< *What will you say? {I AM NOT HERE TO FIGHT, MIGHTY DRAGON, DO NOT FORCE MY BLADE UPON YOU.} {PLEASE, HAVE MERCY ON ME, MIGHTY DRAGON! I AM ONLY A SMALL PONY AND I INTEND NO HARM.} {DRAGON, STEP ASIDE BEFORE I DESTROY YOU.} ... >PLEASE, HAVE MERCY ON ME, MIGHTY DRAGON! I AM ONLY A SMALL PONY AND I INTEND NO HARM.< *You plea for your life, the dragon paying no heed to your cries as they go to attack you. ♥ {FIGHT} {ACTION} {ITEM} {MERCY} [HP:20/20] ... >MERCY< {SPARE} {FLEE} ... >SPARE< *The dragon doesn't look like it wants to be spared. =======================\ |V _ V _ V _ V _ V _ V _ V _ V | |_ _ o _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ o _ _ | |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ♥_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | |_ _ _ _ _ _ _o_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _o_ _ _ | ======================= [HP:7/20] {FIGHT} {ACTION} {ITEM} {MERCY} [HP:7/20] ... >ACTION< {THE DRAGON} ... >THE DRAGON< {CHECK} {PLEAD} ... >PLEAD< *The dragon doesn't look interested. ======================= |V _ V _ V _ V _ V _ V _ V _ V | |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ o_ _ _ _ _ | |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ♥_ _ _ _ _ | |_ _ _ _ _ _ o _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | ======================= [HP:3/20] {FIGHT} {ACTION} {ITEM} {MERCY} [HP:3/20] ... >MERCY< {SPARE} {FLEE} ... >FLEE< *There is no running from this. ======================= |V _ V _ V _ V _ V _ V _ V _ V | |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ /\_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | |_ _ _ _ _ _ _ < ♥>_ _ _ _ _ _ _ | ======================= [HP:0/20] GAME OVER It isn't over yet, Bun-B! Don't lose PERSEVERANCE! ... Quitting... “Ugh...” A light magenta coated Earth Pony mare sat upon an issue-standard steel-cushioned stool, inside of a dark and gloomy laboratory. The ceiling fluorescents were off, only the glowing, artificial illumination that her laptop provided shined against the sleek plastic of the counter-tops, lightening her weary, and partially frustrated eyes as they sat on her mostly empty desktop. Bored, tired and wanting to go home, she clicked into the only remaining task still running on her laptop to check the status on the new P.E.L. software update, the bar, (which currently sat at a solid 26%), moving so unsatisfactorily slow that she pressed the tip of her hoof against the trackpad and moved the cursor around hectically to make sure her screen wasn't frozen. “Ehh...” She sighed again, rubbing her eyes vigorously before letting out a powerful yawn. With a lazy gaze, she found the clock on the wall, big leg at the four, small leg at three. In the morning. As she thought about trying to lay her head down on the desk and doze off, a confident clip-clopping of hooves along with a whistle came echoing from down the hall that lead deeper into the lab. She groaned as the sound grew and her eyes remained unwilling to stay open long enough to look at the pony strolling back. “Bu-uh-un...” The stallion sang her name as he came into the room, “How's the command centre treating ya?” He leaned up against the door that he entered through, a smile on his face as he looked across the lab at the disinterested mare. He was a well dressed mechanic, his uniform clean and tools reflecting whatever light was still in the room from their shiny faces, hanging prominently from the pockets on his chest. His cocky orange eyes looked like tiny portals for irises contrasted against his light blue coat; he was young, strapping almost. His darker, navy hair looked more greased up than a canister of oil. “Bun, why are the lights off?” He realised, and then asked. Bun rubbed her aching forehead, “So I can sleep.” “You're asleep? Wow, I've heard of sleepwalking before but never sleep talking, that's impressive.” He hopped off the wall and trotting further into the room, passing lab table after lab table to find himself in the centre, speaking a command into the air in front of him, “Clide, turn on the lights.” The lights turned on full blast, blinding Bun for a few seconds, throwing her shut eyes against the desk. “Don't make fun of my insomnia...” She begrudgingly lifted her head up from the desk and scooted on her stool to turn to him. “It's a serious medical condition...” A smile, hidden beneath the weight of her sleepless head, peaked out for a brief moment. “Oh really? I'm sooo sorry... But I have a question, what is the cure for too much coffee and video games?” He sat at the desk, on the stool beside her, leaning on the table like a hotshot. Bun's cheeks rose with her grin, her droopy eyes slowly adjusting back to the sun's level of brightness in the room. With a glance at her desk, which merely consisted of a laptop and several empty cups of TreeBucks coffee and then a immediate return to her friend's eye-level, she had her answer. “More coffee and video games..?” “You. Are a freaking. Genius. You know that? No wonder you've been awarded with the greatest distinction any scientist could hope for...” He raised a hoof into the air, swiping it gentle from left to right to allude to the room around them as he finished his sentence. “Overtime.” Her brows playfully resented that by lowering themselves, Bun getting down to business. “How is Odin doing?” He wiped his hooves with a cloth, brandished from one of his seemingly hundreds of pockets, “Well, I cleaned him thoroughly, gave his guts a check-up and replaced his oil, and he didn't even say thank you, would you believe it?” “No...” She overemphasised the word as hard as her underslept body allowed her too. “Yeah, you'd think you would show some appreciation to the pony that has to brush your teeth for you with a file... So, what have you been up to?” Without turning her head, or even trying too hard, she clicked the mouse button beneath her trackpad, the progress bar appearing, the lightning fast update speed now moved all the way to 27% since the last time she checked, around fifteen years ago. “Ooh, how exciting.” He pulled the laptop over and closed the window, “Whatcha got on here?” “It's a work computer, so nothing.” She let him go nuts, not bothering to put up the futile defence she pointlessly could've. “Nothing huh? Sounds like your hiding something...” He turned something on, the monitor angled in a way that made it far more difficult to see what it was for Bun. “What are you doing..?” She unenthusiastically dribbled out of her mouth. “Checking your browser history... Let's see, search history...” He raised both hooves up in the air and in the most over dramatic way he could he typed, saying the letters as he pressed them. “P. O. R. N.” He chuckled to himself, he found the bit far more hilarious than his friend whom he subjected it too. “Huh, nothing. You must use hidden mode, don't you?” She was unimpressed, but also enduring. “You are absolutely disgusting, you know that?” “Yes!” He pretended to fix a tie that he didn't have, “And I am very proud of it.” He wandered back to exploring the mystical wonders of a stock science work-computer, “Ooh, you installed Plundergrail on this?” “I got bored of browser games, yeah.” She explained. “How's that going then?” “Well, it's been fine for most of it... But I'm stuck on the final boss, the dragon dude... And I'm trying to do the pacifist thing but none of the mercy options seem to work.” She recalled to her struggle from earlier. “Yeah no, you actually have to just beat him up, you can't spare him. Also, he's not the final boss.” “W-what?” She whined, feeling even more discouraged about the whole thing. “Yeah, remember the berry bush from the beginning?” “Him? Oh I hate him.” Her voice dropped deeper as her energy died off. “Yeah, he comes back if you do the pacifist route.” “Alright, yeah, I'm not bothered figuring all that out.” A plunk echoed as she let her head collapse onto the table. “You know there are guides online.” He slid the laptop back to her, pressing it against her right ear just enough to be slightly annoying but not enough that she would do anything about it. She groaned. The stallion hopped off of the stool, “Well, my shift is done, I'll leave you to your infinite despair.” With little reluctance she fired back, “My despair was once a rational number, you're the one who multiplied it by infinity.” She only managed to mumble. “Ahh, I love you too.” He mocked her with some razor sharp sarcasm, “See you tomorrow, Bun!” He shouted over his shoulder as he left, changing his tone to something that resembled sincerity. “See you tomorrow, Disarray.” She mumbled too, trying to be louder, but trying was hard. Bun thought, she just laid in her humble bed as the rising sun caressed the roofs of the Manehattan skyline made of a equaliser-like set of skyscrapers; thinking, trying to connect dots she knew were there to be connected, but she didn't know why. A golden sliver of the rising sun's rays crept its way past the curtains of the three star apartment bedroom which held the residence of said Bun Button, listening to the morning chirps coming fro- wait. It was morning. Oh fuck. Her barely awake train of thought skidded to a halt as she flung herself upward, rubbing the grime from her eyes while enduring a stabbing headache. Her phone's alarm clock was whining at her with the stock alarm noise - which she wanted to change but was always too tired in the morning or she would forget about it during the day - for what she immediately found out was hours, seeing that she had grievously overslept. “Shh...” She begged her alarm to quiet down, lumbering over to the flank of the bed and tapping on it blindly, succeeding after the sixth or seventh try. She embraced the soft fabric for a few more moments and then abandoning it to brave the world alone, she slid out of bed into a wobbly stand. She felt her legs want to just give out and let her body collapse to the floor. But alas she had to get to work, even if it was a few hours late that she would be arriving. She brewed a quick mug of coffee and chugged it while it was still hot as a wake up call. She managed to get out of the door in a few minutes, the bitter taste of discounted Bran Apple coffee still remnant in her throat as she made it out onto the street. Bun found a pleasant and unexpected upside as the regular morning rush of ponies barraging past each other on their daily commute had long gone, leaving her trot to the train station and ride to work comfortably unclaustrophobic. She arrived at the Robotics and Emotional Intelligence Research Centre just before mid-day. The nondescript gray block of a building was slipped between a mucky drug store that hasn't been opened since last October when it was investigated by the police for a reason nopony has bothered to find out what it exactly was, and one of those pizzerias that has those creepy animatronic mascots which Bun always felt somewhat slighted by since she's dedicated her life to help building an actually sentient robot. Ever since the whole Cardinal mishap, the entire field of research felt like a taboo for all scientists and was very rarely and reluctantly worked upon - especially because of how impossible it was to even get funded - despite showing probably the most potential out of any scientific field, or at least that is how Bun felt. She was lucky that she even could do this as her full-time job, along with her six other members of staff who all vigilantly fought for the creation of artificial robotic life. Bun found her key and made her way inside. The facility was a cheaply renovated office building in a very run down area of Manehattan, rebuilt into the bare minimum of what they required to work. The first floor fitted with a lab and enough computer equipment to create and manage an AI as complex as the original Shy Project created nearly twenty odd years ago. The two upper floors above were left untouched, still bathing in dust left there from however many millennia since it was last entered. This was because the majority of other equipment they needed installed was so heavy that the ceiling would have collapsed above them and crushed them all to death if it was installed up there. Instead they had the military-grade, air-tight sealed containment system that was required by law, built into a basement beneath the original building. Probably the hardest couple million bits ever fought for by any group of scientists. Bun made her way to the lab, and while pressing against the door she already could hear the chatter as she finally made it into work. “Hello, everypony...” She let out just before being hit by a yawn. The focus of the room dashed over to her, her colleagues nodding from several places around the room. They all seemed to be busy with a whole load of nothing currently. They all looked far too relaxed to have been working while Bun had been still tucked in tight between her sheets. “Bun, you're back!” A delighted pale-yellow Pegasus hopped towards her with bounce in her step. Her long mane folding back atop her forehead on arrival at Bun’s hooves, covering her eyes like a pair of fallen over curtains, leaving her to swipe all of it back with her hoof, showing her lively smile projected further with aid of her glowing magenta eyes. Her mood was radioactive, just oozing off of her as it unwillingly infected Bun, forcing her to return the smile, glad to see Goldwing again. “Hey G-wing, sorry I'm late, I overslept.” Bun said with half of her attention honed onto the erratic Pegasus, the other half on shutting the door behind her. Goldwing began speaking, slowly losing herself in her own words in excitement. “That's fine, thank you for staying over late and doing the patch, I was able to analyse Odin's new mental ability, at least in its offline mode, and the new interpretation matrix looks really cool. I have all of the regular tests ready and also have finished constructing the new ones you wanted, so they're all ready right now.” Being one of the only two ponies allowed to be alone with Odin she had to perform all of the tests with him. “Sweet, I'll be going down to Odin in a bit, just let me check in on everypony else.” “Oh yeah of course, just chat to me whenever you want to get started.” She nodded delightfully. Bun gingerly tapped over to the collection of the other three workers huddled together over a table. Even more specifically, a laptop spitting out some verbs and nouns synchronised with an array of flashing light Bun couldn't perfectly make out from the distance she was quickly closing. Yet whatever was playing she felt a great familiarity with, almost a subconscious nostalgia. “What are you three doing, watching?” She asked, a tad bit curious, a fair bit careful and very concerned that she was going to regret asking. “Flower, aka, your childhood, the documentary.”  A wise-cracking, smart eyed dark-gray stallion twirled around with the grace of a ballerina resisting arrest from the royal guard. Ah yes, the feature length documentary covering just how much ponies the AI Cardinal managed murder in her short, less than a week reign in the real world. Which had the occasional cameo of Bun Button, who had the privilege of being one of the only ponies Cardinal both cared about and also didn't get shot, stabbed or burnt alive from the inside. Bun sighed, displeased. “And, Prism, can you explain to me why you are watching that, at work... Again?” “Well the apparent demon, which has the final say about the wifi, blocks any entertainment platforms; we've gotten bored of listening to a bunch of morons report on the space launch on the news as they've been doing for the past month. Trying to hype up the public for yet another space ship that'll explode once it gets out of the atmosphere... And you haven't exactly been here to tell us what to do either. So, we resorted to searching the DVD cabinet, and apparently, several hours of watching a robot ''learn the meaning of love'' seen through the lens of bad editing and shitty interviews is more interesting than what I voted for. The Fallout in Equestria movie - which despite being a film made for entertainment purposes, unlike this historical documentation - is not what we're watching.” The end of his rant had found the focus turned towards his fellow viewers, who were both ignoring him, heavily invested in this documentary. One of which was even piping up to retort his statement, “Shh, the best part is coming up.” Meanwhile, Bun was still displeased. “Hey! Firstly, I'm not a demon, okay? I just don't want you all being distracted by cat videos, or whatever you watch online, while you're supposed to be working. And secondly, Goldwing didn't need me here to work, why do you?” “Because G-wing is crazy, Bun, you know this.” “He's not wrong!” Goldwing's voice came over in the form of a jolly yell from her workstation as she coloured in funny shapes onto small cards for SCIENCE! All thanks to her Pegasus ears, which allow her to creep on her friends conversions twenty four seven. Bun rolled her eyes, not surprised yet still somewhat cheered up by Goldwing's sincerity. “All right, well, turn that off and get off of your asses because I want to see some stability tests on the new patch, all right?” She clapped her hooves together, “Come on, chop chop.” “Fine...” Prism got up with the enthusiasm of a dead fish, the others also reluctant to unglue themselves from the screen. Bun watched with pride as she commanded her unit so brilliantly, (even though she really didn't, but that's how it felt to her). Then, with a tall chin, she prompted Goldwing, “G-wing, I'm going to start-up Odin, you can come down with your new tests whenever, ‘kay?” She got in return substituting for a response, a wing with a feather raised high in the sky, giving a ''gotcha'' signal without her having Goldwing lose her concentration. And then, grabbing her notepad and pen, Bun made it past the barrier of a dull grey door. Then she practically pranced all the way down to the small blocky staircase, winding down into a several ton heavy security door, where she punched the fifteen digit combination in as if the buttons were tiny whack-a-moles popping out at her. Needless to say she really did enjoy speaking with Odin and running him through tests. It made her day, every day. The seal of the door pressurised, poofing open all science-fiction like with the swoosh and pffttt as it was yanked to the side. Thus revealing a highly maintained, short corridor leading to a regular old fashion door-knobbed door, like that of a very warm home. The door contrasting like black paint over a white canvas of future-y, pale wall panels. She trotted right up and... Knocked. Bun waited at the door, as if somepony wa- “Come in.” A very un-intrusive, choppy, digitised voice came projecting from inside, calm and clever, but still kind. Bun twisted the door's knob open and trotted into the wooden-panel floored, log-walled cabin look-alike assembled beneath the earth. Everything from a hearth to a hay-stuffed bed made this place a cosy little home. And against the far wall in the center there was a little writing desk being occupied by a smiling automaton. He was a pale-silver, his body in patches made of steel plates with slight partings between joints to allow for movement. They were molded into the exact image of an earth pony; a reasonably built-up stallion with a fair dark mane coming from his forehead to the back of his neck in a uniform cut, it also made of steel. His head was turned to Bun, his eyes pitch black spheres with a light blue firefly bouncing around each of them, currently focused on his visitor. “Hey, Odin!” She grinned, happy to see her beautiful creation wide awake. “Hello, Bun. How are you today?” He pronounced with the most exquisite grammar, timing and tone. Like a poet. “I'm great, a bit tired because I overslept; it's why I'm late, but how are you feeling? We've uploaded the new P.E.L update into your framework.” “Is that what it has been? I woke up feeling quite different; I felt struck with creativity, so I went over to my desk to go and write some of my thoughts down.” He statically motioned towards his desk, filled with perfectly aligned papers stacked up together. Bun hopped over, looking at the stacks and stacks of paper, the top one seemingly filled completely to the brim with cursive writing from port to star-port; an ocean of words. “How much... Did you write?” She laughed a little, only a tiny bit freaked out. “99,999 words exactly, you had just interrupted me as I was about to break sextuple digits.” He smiled, seeing that Bun was impressed. “How long did that take you?” Bun felt quite proud; Odin rarely wrote before this. “Three hours, twenty eight minutes and eleven seconds, although that is just an approximation of course.” He pushed against the desk to slide his seat out, giving him room to stand onto his metallic hooves, apparently not bothering to finish that one hundred thousandth word. “Are we going to be doing any tests today?” “Yes, once G-wing gets them down here, but we can just talk for now.” Bun and Odin, without need for communication as it came as second nature to them, sat down on the floor in the very center of the room on the carpet, making a soft and easy resting spot for them to work. “What have you changed in my code, if it is alright that I ask?” He politely requested. “Oh of course, you know how we've been really pushing that creative drive?” “Yes, I am quite familiar.” “Yeah, well Eli and Prism decided to try getting the already expansive thought-complex system we've been using for your creativity before, but it was too static. So, they've started getting like transcripts of philosophy and opinion pieces and stuff like that and created an algorithm that can generate new ideas, using a double-take expression matrix to make sure the ideas make sense, and then mapping the patterns onto your creativity unit...” Bun realised that she had started doing hoof-gestures, and felt kind of embarrassed by how much of a nerd she sounded like. “Now I realise that all just sounds like a bunch of interchangeable, nerd, computer jargon, but hopefully that answered your question.” She let loose an awkward grin. “That did, thank you.” “Ok, good. Can you please run a self-diagnosis for me?” She slid the pen out from her notepad and gripped it in her jaw, hoisting up the pad with the base of her hoof acting as an easel. Odin's eyes dulled into a grey, the pupils disappearing and his head stiffening. “Core temperature stable, CPU usage rising as high as 88%, Harmony energy unexpectedly boosted by 138%. Emotional Complex reading; Happy, excited, curious. Cardinal True Emotion test result; 87% accuracy.” He then blinked with his fabric eyelids, his eyes returning to their normal state. Bun finished scribbling down numbers and dropped her equipment onto the carpet, smiling at Odin. “That is great, you're making real progress. We might need to upgrade your CPU soon before it starts peaking; I'll need to talk to Disarray to see if we can afford it in the budget.” “BUN!” Goldwing screamed from outside the room, bursting in with the force of a charging elephant, a box tucked in under her wing. She skipped over to Bun and placed the box down at Bun's flank, looking like she had just planted a bomb with her enthusiasm, “Done.” She gave a quick smile and then bolted out once more, the huff of air produced by her wings dashing blowing Bun's already displaced mane down her face, covering her vision. Bun swept her mane away and gently picked up the pale cardboard box. Sliding the lid off, she saw the arrangement of physiological experiments she could perform; most of them involving interpretation, emotions or abstract logic. She made her pick, taking out a stack of several sheets of printed-on paper with images of funny looking splotches of black ink. “Alright Odin, let's start with a Rorscanter test.” Bun lifted up a sheet of paper from the stack into her mouth and hanged it like a puppy with a leash that wanted to be walked. She managed to mutter to him, “What do you see?” He looked at the inky mess on the page, inspecting it with great care before making up his mind. “I see... A butterfly.” “Good.” Bun dropped the card, wrote down his answer and picked up another. “What do you see?” “A word?” Disarray requested the moment he pushed through the entrance door, staring at Bun with uncharacteristically worried eyes. Bun and Goldwing were currently in the middle of writing up all of their surprisingly positive results of the latest tests Bun had just performed with Odin a few hours ago on their laptops; the time was now crumbling down into the evening, their regular work shift nearly over. Bun nodded to Goldwing, telling her to continue as she stood up and jogged up towards the door, really perplexed by Disarray, “Where were you? You've been out all day! I've been calling your phone, why haven't you picked up?” “Bun can we speak in private?” He whispered from behind the door, his face partly revealed behind the slim crack. “Sure, what's up?” She opened the door and shut it behind her as the two of them pressed into the entrance hallway, his worry affecting her now. “I was called in by Starlight Glimmer to the Equestrian Science and Technology office; they're cutting our funding.” He got it out plain and simple, his devastation echoing from the moment he was told. “W-what?” Bun didn't believe it, “Why? We're so close! Why would they do that to us?” “They don't think it's worth pursuing anymore, with all of the other green-energy sources nowadays, they don't really care about emotion based energy generation anymore. And you know they've never cared about making a sentient AI... I argued for hours, but they wouldn't budge, I'm so sorry. We're going to have to start doing some crowd funding, and I'm sorry I didn't pick up my phone; it died and I was in too much of a rush to charge it.” He sighed, finding a small amount of relief in getting all of that off his chest. “B-but! We're going to need new parts for Odin! We can't afford that on crowdsourcing! We barely can afford it now!” She shouted in a whisper, trying to keep her voice down while uncontrollably expressing her rage. “I'm sorry, we're just going to have to start making cut-backs. I'm going to try to get a campaign planned tomorrow, but right now we have to figure out how to tell the rest of the guys.” Bun's heart sank, her eyes almost watering up at the thought of losing her dream. “We can't tell them...” “Do you think so?” He said with a painful knowledge and acceptance of what she was about to argue. “It'll break their hearts; maybe after me and you work through a plan, but let them have tonight, we just made a lot of progress and everypony is really hyped, let them ride out the high.” Bun recollected herself, wiping her eyes and straightening her hair. “Alright, that sounds fine.” Disarray agreed, the two of them trotting into the lab. Everypony's attention soon went to Disarray, greeting him back to work and prodding him a little on where he's been, although he just dismissed the questions. They spent the rest of the day finishing a catalogue of their results and having some full-group discussions on how they are going to make more progress towards Odin feeling true emotion. All of them going home at about six in the afternoon; all of them except Bun that is, who had decided she would try make a head start on that crowdsourcing scheme. Editing their website with a statement and plea for donations, trying to get the word out on social media and emailing the Manehattan Journalist Society to try and get a story published about their need. And it was about eleven thirty in the afternoon, midnight steadily closing in on her when she really started feeling the tiring force of insomnia wrap it's cold claws around her mind. So, obviously she began mindlessly scrolling through the posts online, not particularly paying attention to anything as it flew out of her screen like a rocket blasting upward; each meme, advertisement and news story just- huh, I wonder what this is. Zipped through her mind as she clicked on some article about the Nexus Space Institute. Nexus has been attempting to break the limits of the world Equestria sat upon by travelling into the dark void known as ''space''. Their first successful launch was fourteen years ago, using a ship known as the ''Dasher-R''. It was a pony-driven firework aimed right into the sun, seeing if they could land upon its fiery surface using some of the most powerful modern fire-protection magic they had; the type of stuff that allows ponies to swim in volcanoes. Although once the ship had gone out far enough, the reception was too bad to maintain a signal, meaning there was no actual up-close footage of any kind of how the fire-proof spacecraft was exploded by a solar ray the size of Manehattan, which shot out from the sun's surface and sniped the aircraft, knocking it right out of the sky, like if the sun had just swatted a fly. Attempt two fared no better. Four years after their maiden launch, they sent out the ''Spitfire-A'', this time aiming to land on the moon. Despite their extensive improvements on the video and audio streaming over extreme distances, once they launched the ship and it got too close to the moon, something intercepted their signal. Now there is only telescope footage of the Spitfire-A being turned into dust as if it was just snapped out of existence; the pony pilots being killed again. The headline Bun was now staring at? Well, apparently they were going for round three. NEXUS FACES MORE DELAYS IN LAUNCH, AI PILOT FAILS IN TESTS. Today in an exclusive interview with the lead engineer and manager of Nexus, Princess Twilight Sparkle's son, Matrix Sparkle, he confessed the reason why this launch has taken nearly a decade and might take much longer. “We've been working on an AI to steer the ship in place of a pony.” Matrix says, concerned that if anything were to go wrong, that they would not want to lose the lives of another crew. “Even though we're aiming to fly in a path that avoids getting into range of either the sun or moon, which should mean there would be no force to destroy the ship or ruin our signal, we still cannot be too cautious.” But concern for ponies lives is not the only reason they are planning on using an AI, Matrix continues; “It would also means we don't have to worry about things like landing the rocket back home afterwards; we can just set it off into the cosmos and forget about it, and then it will be out there just gathering data like we've never had access to before.” But sadly, creating an AI sophisticated enough to fly a spaceship is not as simple as it sounds. “We've been developing it for several years now, but we've had little success. Very few of the iterations could even pass a driving test with a car. But we are confident, since this is the last hurdle before we are ready to launch, that after perhaps two more years of development we'll be ready to make history.” So, is the timeline of two years going to be hit? Will the rocket leave the atmosphere intact? Will a living pony ever get to experience being in space without dying? Us here at the Manehattan Journalist Society will keep you in touch with all latest developments. Written by π, @PiMJS. Contact: (313) 515-8772 Bun crossed her eyes... AI? They can't figure out AI? She slyly slid her phone up, searching up the contact details of the Nexus Space Institute. Within minutes she found herself holding her phone to her ear, listening to a buzzing tone come in and out as the pony on the other end went to answer. “Hello, you have reached the front desk of the Nexus Space Institute, how can I help you?” A gentle feminine voice projected through the speaker. “Hi, my name is Bun Button, I'm a robotics engineer and an artificial intelligence researcher, I've recently heard that you guys have been having problems creating an AI smart enough to fly your rocket.” She grinned like a little filly making a prank call, life brought back to her tired bones as she kicked against the chair in anticipation. “Yes, that is true... Is there anything I can do for you?” She persisted in trying to stick to her script, somewhat intrigued by Bun's tone. “Would you kindly give a message to your boss for me?” She was nearly squeeing. “Sure... What message may that be?” “Tell him that I can fix his little AI problem, and I have some very reasonable pricing options in mind.”