//------------------------------// // Conversations Around the Card Table // Story: Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me // by DataPacRat //------------------------------// Blanche called out, "Hey, Missy - want to be dealt in?" "Sorry, girls - I'm under an extended-duration truth-zap. Poker's only a game when you can hide information, and I can't hide anything from any of you right now. I'm just grabbing a snack." "What if we promised not to actually ask you what your cards were? You just have to tell the truth, right? That doesn't mean you can't over-bet a weak hand or under-bet a strong one, does it?" "I... you know, I don't actually know." "Isn't that something you should know? Purely for research purposes, of course." "Mmmmaybe." "Of course, it wouldn't be a real test if you didn't use actual stakes, like the points the rest of us are betting." "I have a sneaking suspicion that you're just trying to get my points from me." "Mmmmaybe." "Tell you what - a quick, small-stakes game, no more than two hundred - and if anyone makes me say what my cards are, I get the whole pot for that hand." Red piped up, "Okay, now I'm curious. Does magic think bluffing is the same as lying?" I shrugged, as I pulled a chair up to the table. "They both involve deliberately distorting someone's understanding of the universe... but in poker, you know what you're getting into. Let's not dawdle - I've probably only got twenty minutes left on this spell." The game was... interesting. The first hand, I had an eight in the hole, an eight face up, and an eight on the table, and none of the others had cards worth mentioning - but I knew that if I bet as strongly as my hand suggested, everyone else would just fold right away. But if I made an average or below-average set of bets, then they were much more likely to stay in the hand, pumping the pot full of points for me to snag. But, even knowing all that - it took me three tries to get my hoof to push my first 'call' chips. Naturally, everyone was watching me like a hawk, and folded anyway. After a couple more hands, I began getting a feel for the pattern, here. I wasn't lying, at least not exactly; so I could still make my deceptive bets, to keep anypony from being able to guess what was in my hand. But it seemed that it was enough like lying for the spell to try to nudge me to be more honest. My first instinct in every hand was to play it completely straight - and my second instinct, too. I had to put the effort in to consciously work out what I should bet to maximize my overall winnings. After a couple more, things got even trickier, as I realized that my tells were so obvious that everyone was picking up on them - and tried to fake having to struggle to make the right bet, when I was actually betting to my cards' strength. I had to struggle to struggle, instead of just shoving my chips right out. By the time we came to the last hand, I'd gone through so many different layers of lying-by-telling-the-truth-by-lying, and vice versa, that I think I broke something; the spell snapped off whole minutes earlier than it should have, by my calculations. Which meant that I was entirely free to play however I wished, without mystical mental nudgings. I managed to completely muck it - folded a hand that would have won if I'd kept it. Still, with the odds I saw, it was the best play I could make to avoid betting on what I thought was a losing hand. Which put my take for the whole game at... minus twenty points. Which I thought was doing rather well, given the handicap I'd been working under. Red opined, "We need more crew." I raised an eyebrow. "You think so?" "This boat's built so it needs at least three ponies to do anything useful, like turn while we're moving forward. We've got cabin room for nine, including the captain - three shifts. Now that Marble and Brick are off, we've got five. If we keep three shifts, and we have at least one pony awake every shift just to make sure nopony steals the mainmast, that just leaves two - just enough to fill out a single shift. We can stretch things out a bit, by working longer hours and spending less time in the air... but that chips away at this boat's one advantage: its speed." "We do have some weapons," I pointed out. "Not hardly enough to annoy even a dragon, let alone a real enemy. And we haven't got the crew to use them, either. If we ever get in a fight, we've got one chance of surviving: we fly. We fly fast, we fly high, we fly all around, we fly any which way we can. As long as we get those engines turning at top speed, I don't care if they're powered with dryad farts and seapony songs." "Actually, it seems to be a fairly standard gem-powered drive, running a variant of the come-to-life spell on the propellers..." I got a glare. "Fine, fine. I'm not disagreeing with you. What do the rest of you think?" "Pack. Small." "The more who come under your authority, the more opportunity you have to show your greatness." "Not to throw a damper on the idea," Star Chaser said, thoughtfully, "but aren't we already running away from mysterious ponies who've already gotten control of the Dairy and post office? How can we find any ponies we can trust? Or pay them, for that matter?" I glanced at Red again. "She raises a few good points. Got any answers?" "For one - if we're fast enough, we can get somewhere and hire some crew before anypony can even think to spread the word to try to infiltrate us. For another... well, I'm not sure - but we do have a fast airship, we should be able to find some way to get some bits out of that." I shoved my bid forward, then leaned back in my seat. "Here's a thought. You've been on airships as much as I have - more, not even counting when I got over-focused on CAT WHISKER - and you've got a head for the air. How'd you like to be captain? I'd be owner-aboard, setting general goals, like where to aim for, but would leave all the shiphandling decisions - like whether to hire crew, and if so, who, and how to pay them - up to you. To be honest - I'm not really good at captaining, especially when I spend so much of my time working on my experiments, too." I glanced around. "Anypony have any objections?" After a few moments, Blanche asked, "If she's getting promoted, does that mean she'll be getting more points to bet with?" "I've been thinking a bit," said Blanche. "And while I don't miss Gallopoli - I do miss the university. The academic part, anyway. I may not have any of my old research notes or anything - but maybe... since we're traveling all over the place anyway... I could start collecting some new data, and start re-writing my old thesis?" "Won't get any objections from me," I said, using all my poker skills to keep from whooping in glee. "If you can think of any sites you'd like to visit, that aren't too far off our course, let me or Red know, and we'll see what we can do. Mm... you should probably talk straight to her about course changes - I don't want to get into that whole mess of undercutting the authority I gave her. But for general ideas, I'd be happy to chat." Red asked, "So what's it like for you now, being a girl?" I almost dropped the glass of water I was sipping from, but Star Chaser mused, "Actually, most of the time, I don't even notice it. There is one thing I'm kind of worried about these days... that somepony will do to me what I tried to do to Missy, and I'll end up with foal. I'm not in a particular rush to get back to being a stallion, what with all the other stuff to do that's more important - but even aside from the whole having a kid thing, I'm still kind of hoping to get back to being a guy soonish. I'm no expert on magic, but I'm pretty sure there isn't a spell in the world that could swap my gender back while I've got a foal growing inside me." I said, "Hmmm..." without thinking, and was immediately the focus of four pairs of eyes. Blanched ordered, "Spill." "I was just thinking about one of the forbidden spells I've read about. The merging flesh-shaping one. It wasn't designed for anything of the sort - but it might be possible to apply it to transfer a fetus from one pony to another. I'm not sure, though - I don't think it works at all unless it's being used, at least partly, to take two live bodies and mash them together one way or another... but maybe if there was a third pony willing to be merged, and the spell was used twice... well - given the risks involved, it's almost certainly far riskier than it's worth - right now, I'd classify it as an 'only in case of life-threatening emergency' sort of spell. Um. Since the topic is raised... there is at least one item which my memory isn't clear on, and which I haven't really had a chance to talk to anypony about... but I'm pretty sure it's kind of a sensitive topic, so I'm not sure I should even bring it up." Star snorted. "With an introduction like that, how can you not?" "Fine, fine. I happen to have a memory - which might or might not be true - that if a mare finds out she's pregnant, and doesn't want to be, that she still has... options." Red said, "Oh, you mean abortion?" "Ah, so the word does exist." Our new captain shrugged. "It's not something anypony really talks about - even the idea is kind of sad. But since most ponies don't have access to ancient tomes of forbidden magics... then according to the sex-ed class I got, at least sometimes, it's the only way to save the mare's life. But otherwise, there are lots of families who'd be happy to adopt a newborn, if a mother can't take care of it herself. So we're supposed to talk to our doctor if we need to, and not really talk about it in polite company. But I know you're at least half insane, so you really might not know that. I'd guess it's pretty much the same for cows as for ponies." Blanche asked, "What about diamond dogs, Amethyst?" "Lots. Dogs. Die. More. Pups. Always. Good." "Hunh," I said, thoughtfully, checking my cards. "That doesn't... quite square with the way I thought it was supposed to work, but I guess it's good to know." Star gave me a funny look. "What, did you have some sort of schoolyard type of misunderstanding?" "No, nothing like that. I guess I just look at it from... a different perspective." "Like what?" "Um. It may take a bit of explaining." Her mouth quirked. "Like we've got anything better to talk about?" "Fine, fine. Let me see if I can keep the lecturing down to a minimum... okay. You know how I live with Cheerilee, but it's still her house? She owns it, pays the taxes, handles the insurance, and so on?" "I only met her in passing, but sure." "So she's allowed me into her home as a guest. When is she, or isn't she, allowed to decide I'm unwelcome, and kick me out?" Red, "Her house, her rules. You mess up, out you go." Blanche, "But what if it's a cold winter night, and she'd freeze?" Star, "She still has the moral duty not to let anypony die, if she can help it, even if Missy does make her mad." I frowned. "I guess that wasn't the greatest example. Let me try a different one. There is a certain wasp, which reproduces by paralyzing a caterpillar, and placing its young inside, who eventually eat their way out of their still-living host. I'm not trying to draw a direct parallel here - just setting up the fact that there are all sorts of weird and creepy critters out there. So let's imagine, oh, let's call it a brain-slug. They can think and talk - but they can only live as a parasite, the new ones glomping onto a new host. If you pull 'em off, they die. If you don't, they suck all their nutrients straight from your bloodstream, like a tick or a tapeworm. If one glomps onto you, have you got any moral obligation to not let it die, no matter how inconvenient it is for you?" This hypothetical silenced the room for almost a full minute, other than the sounds of point-papers being pushed into the pot, and cards sliding across the table. Star finally spoke, saying, "You really are bucked in the head, you know that?" I shrugged. "I've found it very useful to try to figure out where my ethical system breaks down, by coming up with things like that; so that I can find what the paradoxes in it are, what the possible fixes are, and pick one. The pattern of ethics I've ended up with... doesn't always give the same answers to ethical problems that anypony else's does. But it comes pretty close on most everyday stuff, and with sounder reasoning. Which means that when I have to figure out what to do in a hurry, I've got a better chance of figuring out the right thing to do." I glanced at Blanche. "I don't always get the right answer..." I looked back at Star. "But I'm working on it." She raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Is this super-duper set of ethics something only an insane person can use, or can anypony work with it?" "Well... it does depend on one thing that almost nopony is willing to do. "Should I ask?" "Learn to admit you're wrong. Even things that are important to you, that are central to your idea of how the universe works, and how you work. You have to be able to admit you're wrong about something a hundred times, if that's what it takes to finally be right on the hundred-and-first." I eyed her cautiously. "You've done it at least once - so even if you started from further back, you've got a chance to build up a momentum that few could imagine." "... Is that it?" "Well - it's necessary, but not sufficient. Once you're willing to take that step... then you have to deal with the consequences of that. Like finding out how to actually tell the difference between when you're wrong and right - what methods tend to provide reliable evidence, and what don't. You have to stare into the possibility that at some point, the whole universe might end up in a state where there aren't any more sapient people in it anymore, and no chance of any more ever existing; and deciding how important it is to you to work to reduce the odds of that ever happening. You have to look at the differences between short-term benefit and long-term gains - or is it the other way around? - and, if you're lucky, notice that the tricks for working for your own long-term benefit just happen to closely match what most ponies call 'ethical behavior', and figure out why that is. You have to be willing to consider that every political stance you've had may actually lead to the opposite consequences you're aiming for, and be willing to change your position. You have to grab hold of every scrap of information you can get your hooves on, because any single one of them might turn out to have immense value - the way that some scraps I never thought would actually have any use turned out to let me introduce a new heart medicine that's already saving lives. And since you're not an alicorn, you have to hunt for every way you can to figure all of that out as fast as possible, so that you can spend more of your life already knowing it." "Sounds like a lot of work." "I suppose it would be, if you were to think of it as work." "Then what do you think of it as?" I grinned. "The only way there is to find out at least some of the marvelously fascinating ways the universe actually works, and then leveraging those ways for personal profit, amusement, and occasional world-saving." "Say - if we're all in here, who's piloting this thing? "The anchor." "Oh. Raise you ten, then."