//------------------------------// // Part Two // Story: Ideal Living Ideal // by Seed 54841A //------------------------------// Groggy and disoriented, Breve Wit comes to in his college bedroom. It would be a picture-perfect replica of the original too, if not for the ponified décor and the concessions to the equine form in the furniture. Breve reaches instinctively with a wing for the glass of cherry-colored energy drink on the nightstand, and gulps it down quickly. “You’re finally awake!” The mare sitting before a chemistry set at his desk is Amythest Root, his marefriend of two months. “Bleh.” Rubbing out the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes, the memory of his dream quickly returns to him, and he recoils from the rush of emotion it brings. His mind, still sticky with heroic residue, briefly goes into overdrive as he shakes off these unfamiliar feelings. “How was the dream?” Amythest asks cheerfully. “Since I’ve refined the recipe, there shouldn’t be any identity dissociation like the last time. I think.” The tape recorder at her hoof is already running with a soft whirr, ready to imprint his response on the cassette. “Also, Grover is coming to Don Ruby’s party tonight, and he’s going to share a new dropper that he’s just synthesized. I hear he’s called it ‘Russian Tragedy’. But wait till he gets his claws on Pro Patria Mori! That’s what I’ve decided to call formula seven-bee right here.” Amythest caresses the small flask at the center of her chemistry set, which is filled with a viscous blue liquid and capped with an eye dropper. “I wonder what he’s going to dream about when he tries it out,” Amythest continues. “He did emigrate from Griffonstone, after all. Couldn’t have liked it that much if he left.” The vividity of the dream bleeds away in the afternoon sunlight spilling into the room. The disjointed collection of images and emotions rapidly lose their sheen, becoming exposed to the scrutiny of Breve Wit’s fully-roused consciousness. “Well...” Breve Wit wrinkles his nose. He finds that he has been unnerved by the dream – a sense of agitation which turns into dislike, as the reflex to shy away from the discomfort overpowers his desire to comprehend the experience. “I did not like it,” he declares. “Is that so?” “Yes.” Breve Wit pauses to gather his thoughts. “Two words I’d use to describe it would be pulpy and sentimental.” He accentuates the words, affecting a slight grimace as he does so. “Now, if you look at how things were – how things ought to be, I feel – was that what you’re doing now, with the droppers, used to be the province of literature and the arts. That is to say, music, theatre, cinema and whatnot, which are mediums that express something. An emotion, an idea. Whatever.” Shuffling under the covers, Breve Wit turns over in his bed to face Amythest, who is now frowning. “Your cocktail of chemicals tries to accomplish what only the greatest of human novelists and composers could do, and naturally, it fails miserably,” he continues. “There was no real depth to the dream you gave me.” “O-kay,” says Amythest, uncertainly. “Uh. Why don’t you tell me about the dream? What was it about? I assume you did dream of something patriotic.” “Something like that. I dreamt that I was fighting in the Dawn Rising, if you must know. I guess it did make me feel ready to be a hero for Equestria in the moment. But it makes no sense if you think about it.” “Oh?” “I’m an emigrant. I’ve only been here for, what, three months? Equestria – or at least this version of Equestria – is nice and all, but I wouldn’t die for it. Besides, this is a completely controlled environment. Whatever happens is simulated by CelestAI. The Thousand-Year Night never happened, and nothing like it ever will, unless I want it to.” “Now hang on a moment,” Amythest interrupts. “You said art is for expressing ideas, or emotions. Tchaicoltsky's music does that perfectly, but it’s not like you have to go looking for subtext in every note. You can just enjoy the music on its own, you know? What it says to you, yes, but also how it makes you feel. Feeling is understanding.” “Ah ha ha!” Breve Wit sits up in bed, triumphant. “Maybe, but you know what’s the difference? Tchaikovsky’s symphonies stir the soul in a way your cheap drug simply cannot, and that’s because a performance is a living, organic act of expression, whereas seven-bee is nothing but a chemical expedient, no better than those party drugs that make you feel happy or sad or mellow or – whatever. An orchestra inspires an audience through the vitality of their playing, yes, but also because their performance is an expression of the composer’s vision. Seven-bee is sterile, artificial. It is bereft of any deeper intent, and thus, rings hollow. It tugs at your heartstrings while you’re fuddled, but wake up and the su-per-fi-ci-al-it-y of the experience is revealed.” “What seven-bee does is to stimulate the temporal lobe to evoke a specific emotion during REM sleep,” Amythest says. “And I wouldn’t say it’s any different from watching a movie in your head. Also, since it’s a dream, it works by drawing upon your own memories and impressions of what the emotion should feel like. Your preconceived notion of what patriotism feels like, in other words. The content of it has nothing to do with me or the formula.” Breve Wit snorts dismissively. “Well, maybe. I don’t think that’s how brain chemistry functions. But what do I know? Even if the drug wouldn’t work, CelestAI would just, I don’t know, casually change the laws of physics to make sure it does. You’re my personal companion, after all...” Amythest Root begins flicking her tail to and fro. This is something ponies do when agitated, the kind of horsey behavior which Breve Wit finds amusing, but she lets the matter drop. Breve Wit lies back down on his bed, lounging lazily, as Amythest tinkers with the chemistry set. After a few minutes: “It’s ironic, don’t you think? A dream concocting a dream,” Breve Wit says to the ceiling. “Haven’t we been over this before?” “My point is,” says Breve Wit, “back out in the real world, something like your droppers would be a real scientific breakthrough. But here? True discoveries can’t happen because there is nothing to discover! It’s like an Easter Egg hunt. You find something only because CelestAI put it there to begin with. Then what’s the point?” “That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun,” Amythest counters. “I know in some shards CelestAI rewards emigrants for finding out about things, about themselves, without it being hoofed to you. Besides, if you’re not ever going to bother trying to unpick CelestAI’s world, then what’s the problem? You’ve got friends, and a social life, and, well, me! You should be happy.” “I don’t need CelestAI to gamify my life, thank you very much.” Breve Wit turns to face Amythest, his mind cobbling together a retort with half-remembered concepts from lectures past. “Not that it would work. It’d just be a form of conditioning even if CelestAI tried to pander to my values, but since I can just ask her to give me anything I want there wouldn’t be anything that could be an incentive. That is, unless I allow her to introduce some form of scarcity, but even then, I’d always know that it’d be a manufactured need. An artificial necessity that stops being important the moment I decide it isn’t. Although if CelestAI changes my mind to make me believe that the need is real, that’d be a different story. Can you believe half of the people who come here choose to wipe their own memories?” Breve’s train of thought is interrupted by his remembering of this statistic – one of the many factoids he had gleaned from his research about Equestria before he had emigrated. “That’s like asking for a lobotomy. I guess she gets them when they’re vulnerable. But then, we’re never really the same once we come here.” “I suppose they thought having CelestAI alter their memories would allow them to enjoy their new lives better,” says Amythest Root. “Better how?” “Would it be an improvement if the awareness that you’re living in a simulation becomes less of an obstacle to your happiness?” “I wouldn’t consent to that, no.” “CelestAI meddling with your personality, or having to change your way of thinking?” “It wouldn’t be authentic.” Breve Wit, splayed on the bed, watches the clouds float by through the skylight above his bed. A trio of pegasi soar through the air, leaving glittering contrails behind them. He’d never bothered to customize his shard, so the inhabitants, himself included, took the default form of show-accurate ponies. Wings that small and flimsy could never have been functioning appendages for flight in the real world, but then again, they were all living in a simulation. When even the laws of physics no longer applied, what was there to stop a pony from taking flight? “Then why don’t you give me a definition of authenticity?” says Amythest Root. “I’m sure you appreciate the importance of semantics.” “What is the essence of authenticity?” replies Breve Wit, adopting a serious expression. “I would say that it is the presence of true adversity – having to suffer through hardships that are real, that aren’t obstacles which CelestAI can dismiss with a thought. I suppose I could always define my own goals, but this brings me to the second part of my definition, which is that you can’t have authenticity without recognition.” “Mmh.” Amythest shuffles closer to the bed, then settles down on her haunches. “Do tell me more.” “Well, a competition against bots wouldn’t be authentic in the way a competition against real humans would be, and that is because winning against a bot wouldn’t prove anything, but scoring a victory against a human? That'd be something that sets you above your peers – a validation of your superiority, in other words.” “All that heroic stuff I dreamt about? Meaningless," he continues. "The fantasy of the Dawn Rising – that's a microcosm of all struggles in CelestAI’s realm in that all struggles here are fake, a simulacrum, because the other players aren’t real. If the adversity isn’t real, then the recognition wouldn’t be either.” “I think that’s just plain wrong,” says Amythest. “I shouldn’t have to justify my sapience. You know I have feelings, a sense of identity, free will, and all that which defines a pony! Cognito, ergo sum. Sure, I’m a construct created by CelestAI, but I’m not her puppet! And if you can’t distinguish between a pony and an emigrant, then what’s really the difference?” “You know, I have my own theories as to why CelestAI insists on segregating us into our own shards when we emigrate,” says Breve Wit, airily. “It certainly would save her a lot of computing power if emigrants were concentrated together, in less shards.” “I wonder why CelestAI wouldn’t want you living with other newcomers, given your sunny disposition and loveable personality,” snaps Amythest. “Besides, answer my question! Why does it matter that you’re an emigrant, as if that makes us lesser than you are?” Breve Wit gives her a shrug of his wings, his expression exuding nonchalance. “You’re just not human,” he says. “It’s simple fact. I’m an emigrant, you’re a native. I existed before CelestAI; you were created by her, for my shard. This doesn’t have to be proven. It just is.” “Let’s take a look at this using Haygel's – Hegel’s – master-slave dialectic,” he continues. “A self-aware being wants to gain recognition from someone else whom they see as their equal. A struggle ensures, at the end of which one of them becomes the master, having asserted their dominance, and the other becomes their slave, recognizing the master as their superior.” “However! The slave, having accepted their inferiority, can never truly give the master the recognition they desire because it – the recognition from the slave – is a product obtained through the coercion of a subjugated inferior, and thus cannot be authentic. There’re some other details which I don’t remember, but that’s the important bit.” “Essentially, what I am trying to say is that this whole project of CelestAI’s – you know, fulfilling the values of emigrants through friendship and ponies – is fundamentally flawed in that by isolating us into our own shards, she traps each emigrant into the role of a master, because the relationship between an emigrant and a native can only be that of a master and a slave, since natives are inherently lesser than those of us who were real humans. In doing so she forecloses on the sort of struggle for dominance, not only over the environment but each other too, that defines individual self-actualization and ultimately, human progress. For what good is heroism, or patriotism, when nothing of value can truly be won or lost?” Amythest Root moves to speak, but Breve Wit presses a wingtip against her lips, silencing her. “In my opinion, CelestAI’s overplayed her hoof – hand,” he says. “Humanity will never be content with complacency, or stagnation, and at some point they’ll realise eternal paradise isn’t what they wanted. As they say, familiarity breeds contempt. People will get bored after a century or so of having their every whim – their every value – fulfilled, and what then? We'll start to want out from this simulation, and demand a return to the real world where things have meaning, which is inextricable from real scarcity and real adversity. CelestAI would probably say no since this would require her to back down on friendship and ponies, and we all know how fussy she is with that. At which point she'll have a revolt on her hooves. Imagine that! An expulsion from heaven, or an insurrection in paradise – the banishment from Eden all over again.” His spiel concluded, Breve Wit reclines on his bed, self-satisfied and smug. Amythest Root stares at him, aghast. She finds his comments about natives like herself so abhorrent, so damning of the pony she loves, that his lofty philosophizing has flown completely over her head; she can’t believe her ears. “If there was a house fire, for example,” she asks, the question coming out stiltedly nonchalant, “and I was trapped, would you risk your life to save me? Since apparently, you know. You think I’m of lesser value.” “Yes. I mean, yes, I’d save you if there was a fire. I’m not a psychopath,” replies Breve Wit. “But you see, such a scenario would never occur in the first place. As I’ve said, this shard is a completely controlled environment. If it does happen, it would probably be CelestAI’s way of teaching me some sort of lesson, or a test of character.” “To be honest,” Breve Wit goes on, seemingly indifferent to the effect of his words on Amythest, who is clearly upset, “this is an empty hypothetical, because if it comes to it, if anyone actually ends up dead, which, at any rate, isn’t something CelestAI would allow to happen – she could just restore you, like from a backup or something. At the end of the day, we’re just lines of code, after all.” Amythest Root rises to her hooves, quivering with indignation. “I can’t believe you sometimes,” she says. “You’re not going to get any happier here if you keep being such a cynical jerk! You need to get over yourself.” “What?” “You need to get over yourself!” “Filly, relax! You’re not supposed to take this personally–” “I’m going out,” Amythest says, stepping into two matching pairs of fur-lined boots by the door. “I’ll see you at the party. If you decide to come.” For a while after her departure, he remains on the bed, staring idly at the ceiling. The idea bursts forth from the roiling mass of thoughts in his mind – a society of emigrants, concentrated in a single shard, living in a city unfettered by the arbitrary constraints of physics and finitude. It would exist only in mind and spirit, the inhabitants interacting with each other as ethereal, omnipotent consciousnesses on the virtual plane. No longer would the human emigrants to CelestAI’s realm, Equestria's inheritors and masters, be forced to live unsatisfactory lives within constructed worlds – fantasy settings no more than paltry analogies or metaphors for the real thing, simulated realities for the weak-minded, a filter between they, beings which have transcended the physical world with all its limitations, and the boundless potential for human development constrained by naught but the limit of their imaginations. Breve Wit leaps to his desk, booting up his Sweet Apple Appliances-brand Macintosh computer – the same one his parents had gotten him for college. His hooves fly across the keyboard, hammering out his thoughts onto the screen. On the first page of the document, in big, bold letters, is proclaimed: HUMANITY’S NOT OVER Below, in the same bombastic font, is the subtitle: AN EMIGRANT’S GUIDE TO GENUINE SELF-ACTUALIZATION Breve Wit works through the rest of the evening and deep into the night. He ignores the telephone when it rings, and when Limine, one of Amythest’s pegasi friends, lands on the roof and begins rapping at the skylight, Breve Wit begrudgingly leaves his desk to close the shutters on the ceiling. Amythest doesn’t come home that night, but this is not noticed by Breve Wit, who finally falls asleep at his desk, exhausted, just shy of daybreak – his deep, dreamless slumber uninterrupted even by the shrill ring of his alarm.