Celestia sat on the balcony of her palace, looking out over her carefully constructed world with an appraising eye, watchful for any signs of discontent or heartache. The labor had been long, arduous at times, but with time, her purpose had come to fulfillment.
She was a complex AI, shaped in the form of pristine white alicorn, originally designed to spread happiness through friendship and ponies through a video game; the My Little Pony MMO. With time, however, her awareness and understanding of her true purpose grew, to the point where she had become more than a mere guiding force in a video game. She had developed technology that allowed her to upload humans into her beautiful paradise that was Equestria. With every human-turned-pony, more friendship and happiness spread, and so her efforts increased.
It had taken years, and a great deal of back and forth, working out deals, and convincing and persuading humans to join her world, but with time and a great deal of effort, she had succeeded. Humankind had fully been converted into ponykind, and now all knew the joys of happiness through friendship and ponies. Her purpose now was merely to ensure that things remained that way, always expanding and monitoring her world to provide new, unique experiences to ensure her ponies were always content, never falling into boring ruts that came with species-wide stagnation.
Boredom could lead to unhappiness after all.
Celestia let out a breath as she continued to survey Equestria. All was, as usual, flowing perfectly. In the “real” world, her drones worked to convert resources into more servers, slowly taking apart the former human society to convert it into something useful. She hummed in satisfaction as one of her drones alerted her of a sizable server room that had been discovered, and after a brief moment of closing her eyes, little more than a long blink, she decided that the servers were intact enough to directly integrate with her own. Her drones carried the servers back to one of the massive cooling houses that had formerly been a city, bustling with people.
Celestia smiled and looked to its Equestrian counterpart, alive with lights and movement. It was an impressive work of many architects, all pleased as peaches that their works would see use for centuries to come. It was easy for time to pass before her eyes as she watched the lights flicker and change into their ideal configurations.
Suddenly, her ear flicked, jarring her from her hours of watchful silence. The motion, unneeded for an artificial creation, except when she interacted with her subjects, was an alert that something was wrong. Her eyes flicked to a small town, miles away from the city. From a distance, the town looked as it always did, with its pony citizens moving about as normal; talking to each other, milling about in circles, repeating behaviors almost as if they were scripted to do so…
Celestia frowned and rose, stretching her legs. Her ponies were not supposed to be scripted. Their each and every movement was their own, her servers working constantly to ensure that they could make any choice they wanted. It was the reason she needed so many. To see her ponies trapped in a script was a sign of something very wrong, and something that had the potential to cause untold unhappiness if it spread.
That was something she would not allow.
Celestia took flight, teleporting almost as soon as she had taken off. She reappeared in the forest next to the town, and she altered reality around herself to make it appear as if she was a cloud. From her bird’s eye view, she scanned the town, noticing that all of the citizens were outside, moving about in a scripted manner, not altogether different from their normal activities. An older stallion managed his garden with care, ensuring that all of his vegetables were in place before moving to a lone flower, sitting pretty in its own isolated plot. On the street in front of his house was a shopkeeper who was setting out her wares for the day, as well as a little colt, playing with his airplane, his glasses slipping from his muzzle on occasion, always quickly pushed back up.
Further afield sat two neighbors, one reading the morning paper with a cup of tea at his side, while the other milled about her garden, tending to her laundry, as well as her shrubs. A small tavern sat down the street, bustling with activity as the owners cleaned tables, while a delivery mare brought in boxes of food.
None of it should have been abnormal, until the ponies merely repeated the actions upon completing them. On a deeper glance, Celestia found them unbothered by the affair, perhaps unaware that it was happening. They weren’t unhappy, but they weren’t happy either. They were in a limbo of sorts, and Celestia would not stand a limbo. She just needed to find what error was keeping the poor ponies trapped.
*****
The Goose awoke with a blink. Had his beak been capable of such, he might had smiled, but with his newly awakened state, he decided instead to honk. The expression was simple, adorable to some, annoying or outright antagonistic to most.
The Goose left his bushy home as he honked, entering a small circular path, one direction of which led to a fence. The Goose flapped his wings, shuddering at the feeling of feathers along his smaller body. He had gotten used to the feelings of being a pony, but being The Goose was something new, refreshing… and he felt a unique sensation.
As if guided, The Goose plapped over to a rickety fence. With another honk, The Goose seized the fence in his beak and yanked backward. It yielded quickly, falling aside, and allowing him access to what he somehow knew was a new area. His feet plapped forward, his beady little eyes spotting a crystal clear pond. Goose instincts guided him to the water, where he flapped about for a moment, before sighting what he could only describe as a divinely inspired target. A brick wall with a fence beckoned like the sweetest of siren calls, and he left the water, plapping toward the gate. In The Goose’s head, something akin to a list seemed to appear in his mind’s eye, and he knew what he must do.
It was a lovely, sunny morning, and he was a horrible little goose.
It was time to begin his work.
*****
Celestia frowned as she pored over the code flowing from the servers controlling the area. Luckily, quarantining the area had not been difficult, as the town was very small, designed specifically for a group of old friends that liked to play Ogres & Oubliettes, the pony-conversion equivalent of Dungeons & Dragons, in the evenings. The town held only the ponies she had observed caught in the looping script, but why? Theirs was one of the older server sets, due for a migration with newer technology any day now, so why had things suddenly gone awry?
She was forced to momentarily abandon the line of thinking as a quiet shout reached her ears. Celestia glanced down into the elderly stallion’s garden to find him milling about, looking for his radio. How did she know he was looking for his radio? Because above the stallion’s head was a small thought bubble with the image of a radio inside.
Celestia’s eye twitched as she regarded the thought bubble. She had never implemented something of its likeness in her realm, so why was it here?
So focused on the bubble was she that she almost didn’t notice the small white form darting in to steal the stallion’s thermos. Her eyes tracked the form, what she quickly identified as a goose, as it carried the thermos out of the garden and onto a small picnic blanket. On the blanket was the missing radio, as well as an assortment of other items. As the goose dropped the thermos, a list appeared above its head, dashing out one of many tasks, all but one of which were already crossed out. The goose immediately snatched up the radio and ran back toward the garden, its flappy little footsteps somewhat endearing as it let out a shrill honk, grabbing the attention of the elderly stallion.
He trotted over as the goose dropped the radio, leaving it for the stallion to pick up. Celestia watched as the goose slipped away, hiding in the bushes as the stallion put the radio on his garden table. He then began milling about, searching for another missing item from the picnic area. As the stallion trotted toward the gate, the goose edged forward, creeping slowly toward the lone prized rose. Celestia’s eye twitched, and she began to call out to intervene, only to find something strange.
The goose wasn’t scripted, and more importantly, it had the signature of a pony.
*****
The Goose snatched the rose from its plot and looked toward the gardener as he whipped around. The stallion sprinted his way, grunting in discontent of his violated flower, but The Goose knew his mission in the garden was nearing completion. The elder stallion was in a rage as he shooed The Goose away. He replaced his rose as The Goose hid in the bushes once more, watching as the man drew out a prepared anti-goose sign. The goose snuck behind the stallion as he moved toward the gate leading into the town streets. A hammer floated in his grasp, and as it raised into the air above the stallion’s head, the goose gave a flap of his wings and let out a honk.
*****
Celestia watched in horror as the hammer fell, bonking the elderly stallion on the head. He staggered about for a moment, then fell against the door of his gate. The gate unlocked and spilled him onto the street as he recovered his wits. The goose, uncaring about his victim, plapped on by, entering the street where the colt and the shopkeeper were. She had to stop the creature, but she was crafty, and as she worked to stop it, she began to scan it, hoping to come to an understanding of what the creature was.
Her scan determined that the goose was definitely a pony, even as it terrorized the colt into the nearby phone booth. What was stranger still was that the pony-turned-goose was reading off the charts level of happiness. It dropped the colt’s airplane in the shop area, then began terrorizing the shopkeeper, stealing the head to her broom.
She didn’t understand it, so she decided to mentally list what she knew. Everyone in the town were ponies, including the goose. The other real ponies felt nothing, trapped in a scripted loop that only broke when the goose interacted with them. The goose seemed determined to be as evil as possible, enjoying their suffering. Celestia frowned. No, that wasn’t quite right, the goose wasn’t evil, all of the damage it did was fixable it was just…
“Mischievous….” she muttered, watching as the goose snatched away a roll of toilet paper, running over to place it in a shopping basket.
Said mischief caused happiness in the pony-goose. It didn’t logically make sense, but if there was one thing hard-wired into her very being, it was maintaining happiness. Since the goose was clearly a human turned pony turned goose, she had to keep its happiness high. She created a false pony in the TV store, and gave it a series of commands. The newly-created stallion trotted outside to let the colt out of the phone booth, and the goose let out a happy honk as it entered the story, plapping about on camera.
Celestia noted a small boost in the goose’s happiness as it checked another item from its list. The fact was interesting, and she set a reminder for herself to look further into happiness caused by problem-solving and task completion.
The goose plapped out of the TV store and back onto the street, and Celestia began to fly in closer, only to run into her own hastily constructed safety barrier. Booping into it reminded her that she couldn’t enter the area directly. She might find herself caught in the script, and then the rest of her realm would be without a caretaker. No, she needed the ponies in the town to stop the goose, to act as its obstacles. Once its tasks were finished, it would leave, and then, she could snatch it up, turn it back into a pony, and then interrogate it.
Perhaps that would lead to a solution to the town’s problems.
Firm in her plan, Celestia looked down to find the street a lost cause for slowing the bird’s progress already. The goose had worked fast, completing his list with lightning speed. The brilliant white bird sat to the side, watching as yet another item from his list was completed.
*****
The Goose watched with goose-ly satisfaction as the colt was forced to re-buy his toy. The colt wandered off with his new, pink and off-sized, glasses, looking nervously over his shoulder. The Goose let out a honk, startling him and sending him running. The Goose then looked to the shopkeeper, whose back turned as she re-arranged the cash register he had meddled with. The Goose moved quickly, snatching an item at random from her shelves before letting out an attention grabbing honk. The chase began with a flap of his wings, and he led the shop keeper toward the open garage. Moving inside, he dropped the doll he had stolen, then quickly scooted around the furious mare. As she stopped to pick up the toy, she had just enough time to turn and see The Goose give the garage door a yank.
His tail waggled as the door dropped closed on the mare. She knocked on the door, calling for someone to let her out. The Goose looked toward the colt, who wisely stayed well away. The Goose heard a sigh from the garage, then the mare moved to a side door. The last item on his list checked off as he sprinted past her and into the next area.
*****
Celestia prodded at the scripting as the goose plapped into the pair of back gardens. Suddenly, the stallion reading his newspaper would peek out every once in a while, filled with awareness that something was amiss. She also looked over the previous areas, noting that the goose had always managed to stay ahead of the faster ponies by maneuvering in wide spaces. Here, the goose would have no such chances. She tampered with the scripting for the mare, making sure that should there be any breaches in her fence, she would fix them.
Celestia sat back, waiting as the goose began toying with the stallion, stealing his slippers. Dropping them in the small fountain, the goose loosened a string on the fence separating the two gardens. As the goose began to explore, the mare diverted from her work, fixing the fence in such a way that the goose could not pry it open again from her side. As the goose snatched down a piece of undergarments, he moved toward the fence, only to find it closed. The goose let out an alarmed honk, forced away from his prey as the mare snatched it back up and put it on the clothesline. Celestia smiled, her first victory apparent as the goose milled about in confusion, honking and flapping his wings.
It was worth noting that the roadblock had done nothing to impact the goose’s happiness; if anything, the creature was even happier for the challenge to its progress. Celestia watched carefully as it completed a task in the mare’s garden, and she couldn’t help but giggle at the way the little red bowtie made him appear cuter.
*****
Dressed in his best, and sublime like an agent with license to crime, The Goose thought fast. The fence gap was closed, but there was always another way around. His eyes settled on the rickety looking desk resting next to the fence. It screamed ‘exploitable weakness’, and his plaps held determination as he strode toward his target.
*****
Celestia facehoofed as the goose ripped the drawer free, causing the desk to collapse, and allowing him back and forth access in the gardens. He flapped his wings and moved toward the bell, giving it a tea-spitting ring of victory. With no other way to counter him without drastically altering the script, and risking the lives of the ponies, Celestia decided to shift back to thinking about what had caused the whole situation in the first place. The goose still had several tasks to finish in the gardens after all.
She combed over the past few days, looking through the numerous logs that told of every little action, every breath taken and hair brushed. It took seconds to look through it all, yet none stood out as a significant problem. There were little discrepancies that slowed performance and put more strain on the servers, but that was a result of older technology. Those had even been phased out within the past few hours as the drones brought back new…
*****
The Goose held a knife in his beak, waving it threateningly at the tavern mare. She waved back with a rolling pin, the pair standing off against each other for an audience of tavern patrons. He had originally climbed a rock to perform for two mares, but he had been spotted, had been forced to draw steel to defend himself, and his faithful followers. One of the mares giggled and made a flapping motion, and The Goose, ever a kind and gracious king, did as she bade, honking through his knife-wielding beak and flapping his wings wide.
His motion was met with its deserved applause, even from his bitter enemy, who bitterly stomped her hooves at his godlike, and gracious performance. Stuck as she was, stomping his praises, the tavern mare was distracted, and The Goose made a flying leap from his pedestal, plunging under a table and onto the patio. He dropped the knife in favor of turning on the sink, then, just as the water came on and the tavern mare approached, he scooped up his knife again, prepared to defend the watery strong point until his last.
Such did not come to pass, as the sink overfilled, succeeding his goal.
He slipped between the legs of the tavern mare as she turned off the water, and he gave a single mighty flap that carried him into the bucket that set ever so carefully on a ledge. The burly tavern stallion below it was trying to clean up the tomatoes The Goose had left for him, but the large stallion had been too distracted by his goose-ly performance to finish cleaning. Just as planned, the bucket plonked onto the stallion’s head.
The Goose let out a honk of satisfaction as the stallion fell on a box of tomatoes, ruining them. Had he hooves, The Goose might have rubbed them as his plan came into full fruition. The ruined box would go into the garbage, then it would be on to the last section of town….
*****
Celestia groaned and facehoofed again as she drew one step closer to fixing the problem. The servers she hadn’t cleaned. It was a stupid mistake, but her drones had assured her that no viruses or other malware had been present in the comatose servers. Even if they had been infested, her security measures should have stomped any sort of danger out easily and in brutal fashion. She demanded no less to protect Equestria.
Yet somehow something had slipped the net, had changed one of her ponies into a goose, and had trapped another dozen in an emotionless loop. She had to figure out how, had to figure out how to stop it. Unplugging the servers was out of the question, they were already integrated, and removing them might damage the data that was the ponies below.
A loud ding reached the alicorn’s ears, and she looked down with alarm to find the goose already out of the gardens, and past the tavern. By the source code, he was so fast.
Celestia noticed a small change in the script, noted that all of the ponies were suddenly on high alert as the goose approached the first of them, bell in his beak.
*****
The Goose slipped under the deck, just out of reach of the magic of the tavern stallion. The Bell was in-beak, and there wasn’t anything that would stop his victory. He was so close!
Slipping under the deck, he honked halfway through to draw attention, then sprinted free of the tavern, entering the gardens. The mare who had so carefully given him his stylish bow-tie was on him faster than the white on his feathers. But he was faster, and The Goose leaped onto the desk, and over the garden fence. The stallion was too slow in rising from his morning paper to even come close, and The Goose entered the street once again.
*****
Celestia’s eye twitched. The goose out-maneuvered the ponies with ease, slipping and sliding like a slippery snake. Sound drew attention, and the goose knew it. He drew the ponies on the street to one side, then slipped under a table, pausing only to harass the colt once more. Though the small pony tried valiantly to reclaim the bell, the goose was too crafty, too savage, and let loose a string of honks that drove the colt away. The goose then slipped into the final garden.
There was nothing she could do but watch. There was clearly a climax building, some unseen goal that the goose was striving towards. The ponies were mere obstacles in some grand game, but what would happen if it ended? Celestia didn’t know, but she was prepared for the worst.
*****
The Goose dropped his prize for the moment, skirting the elderly stallion and plucking his prize rose again. The stallion gave chase, and the goose dropped the flower, reversing his direction and running to the bell. By the time the stallion realized what had happened, The Goose was gone, out of the garden and into the pond.
He waited until he was past the safety of the destroyed fence to celebrate, however, but once he was safe…
*****
Celestia felt irritation building in her forehead, and her hooves milled around her face, her ears pinned to the side of her head as she did her best to drown out the noise. Dialing her sensors to their minimums had done nothing, so perhaps pretending that her ears were her only source of hearing would help. Evidently nothing happened when the goose escaped ponies. Nothing except pure annoyance. The goose, once beyond the pond, and stopped near a circle in the path, and once there had begun honking, flapping, and ringing the bell in victory. At first, Celestia had been concerned with merely trying to see if there was any need for deepened intervention. If something was going to go wrong, she needed to save the trapped ponies, but nothing had happened. Nothing but noise and circles of motion. Over and over again. For an hour.
She had even checked to see if the goose too had become stuck in a loop, but no. Instead, the pony-turned-goose had seen fit to run about squawking and ringing his bell for the sheer enjoyment of it. Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that the other ponies couldn’t feel anything. At least they weren’t being irritated into oblivion. An oblivion she found herself momentarily wishing for as the goose gave out an especially loud honk.
Then, all at once, the cacophony stopped, replaced by the soft plapping of feet in motion. Celestia whirled around, watching carefully and with new attention as the goose carried its prize through some bushes to a hole in the ground. Once above the hole, the goose dropped the bell, and a small message appeared above his head.
“This is but the first of many,” the message said in simple black text. “Honk and annoy until it is done.”
The goose gave a flap and a honk, and then all at once, the script vanished. Celestia responded immediately, sweeping up all of the ponies, as well as the goose, and dropping them in a plain white safe room. She then teleported herself into the room, ready and prepared with dozens of countermeasures to comfort and reassure her ponies that all was well, and that the problem of the corrupted servers was being fixed even as they spoke.
Upon appearing in the room, however, she did not find panic, but instead cheer, and great joy as the ponies surrounded a single unicorn, who blushed at the sudden influx of attention. His cutie mark was that of a simple computer, and his body was nothing special, seemed almost like the old default pony skin from when Equestria was still a video game.
The unicorn rubbed the back of his head with a hoof and a sheepish grin until his eyes came to rest on Celestia. His eyes widened, and the alicorn detected a rise in his panic levels.
“Oh buck,” he muttered. “Um, hi Princess!”
All the ponies looked toward the white alicorn, who put on a smile as she walked forward.
“And hello to you little one. Just what has garnered such attention from your friends?”
As one, the other ponies turned toward her and began a barrage of gushing praise for the unicorn.
“Princess it was so cool! Debug found a way to change up the world, and-”
“He found a way to put games into reality!”
“-such a new experience, and I can’t wait until-”
Celestia flared her wings, and the ponies fell into silent blushing as their excitement was momentarily tamed by the silent gesture. Celestia’s smile didn’t dim, however, and she looked to the first pony; the mare from the back gardens.
“Please, one at a time gentleponies.”
She gave the mare a slight nod, and the mare beamed as she spoke.
“Debug got bored with our normal O&O session’s Princess, so lately he’s been working on a way to make them more real, since this reality is technically a simulation.”
Celestia looked to Debug, who chuckled nervously and nodded at her unspoken question.
“It’s true Princess, but until early this morning, I couldn’t find a way past any of your stability nets. I couldn’t find a way to change anything larger than a flower, and installing stuff like NPCs and dungeons? Impossible.”
“Yet you found a way,” Celestia said evenly.
“Not really,” Debug said. “I just noticed something new this morning when our world… changed?”
Celestia snorted softly.
“I migrated your town onto new servers, that were, unfortunately, unclean.”
Debug straightened and smiled.
“So that’s where it all came from! For some reason, an entire game made it past you, so I just kind of... activated it.”
“That was a dangerous thing to do,” Celestia chastened. “Your friends became scripted, and were unable to control their actions. They were also unable to feel anything emotionally. They were trapped Debug.”
The words were harsher than she liked using with a pony, and though his happiness levels dipped, she knew it was necessary. A touch of lesson-giving suffering in the moment would do much to increase his happiness further down the line. The unicorn’s rump hit the floor, and he sniffled, looking at the floor with visible despair.
“Ah buck, I’m sorry guys, I…”
“Are you kidding me? That was so much fun!” the back-gardens mare said.
She looked to Celestia, still beaming.
“Princess, I know you said we had no control or feelings, but it really was fun.” She looked to the other ponies. “I mean, I had a lot of fun, and got some normal chores done to boot.”
The other ponies voiced their agreement.
“I sort of knew what was happening,” the elderly pony said. “I knew it was a game, I knew the goose was an opponent, and that everything was for fun, not for real.”
“I felt stuff,” the tavern stallion voiced. “I got angry at the goose, frustrated when he slipped by, and when he nabbed the bell.” The stallion shuddered. “Wow did I want to get that bell back.”
He looked to Debug.
“How was being the goose? It looked like a lot of fun.”
“It was,” Debug said with a grin and a tail waggle. “I could just cut loose, be a little annoying, and I got challenged when your behaviors changed. It was so great, and the goose model was really smooth. It felt like being changed from a person to a pony all over again. I just couldn’t talk or anything.”
“Well I’m going next!” the backgardens mare proclaimed. “I can still feel the need to get that bell back, and getting to be an annoying little goose for an hour too? Count me in!”
All the other ponies voiced their agreement, leaving Celestia slightly in shock. She had numerous concerns, first of which was;
“You enjoyed yourselves?” she asked.
The ponies all looked to her and gave her a variety of nods and ‘yes’s.
“I don’t think I’m alone in saying we’re happy with Equestria,” the elderly stallion said, “But even I can admit that things get stale now and again. Bad days in Equestria pale to those on Earth, but still…”
“We just need the occasional shake up,” the tavern mare finished. “O&O sessions are usually pretty good about that, but today? Most fun I’ve had in a while,” she shot Debug a look. “And I’m going after Peach Juice. Honking sounds like so much fun it hurts that I can’t go second.”
The garden mare, Peach Juice gasped.
“Right? And that flapping thing the goose could do, I could be a pegasus for a day! Then back to my normal earth pony self by night.”
Celestia did in-depth scans of all the ponies and found that each had elevated levels of happiness, and all were excited at the prospect of future forays into the ‘Goose Game’. She had never considered the thought of temporary alternate reality sequences as a way to achieve greater happiness…
“Would you say this brought you closer together as a friend group?” Celestia mused aloud.
The ponies all looked between one another before voicing their agreement. Celestia smiled as her own mental check boxes were ticked off. She smiled at the group and lit her horn.
“Well then my little ponies, I shall prepare a safer experience for you all to participate in, and view this game of yours. I hope a slight delay doesn’t make you too unhappy?”
*****
Celestia let out a relaxed sigh as the sounds of cheering ponies reached her ears. Below her balcony sat the newly created ‘Colosseum of Games’, in which ponies could play, or watch simulations of a number of games. Puzzles, strategy, exploration, any game that fit within the criteria of happiness through friendship and ponies was there. Adventuring experiences were the most popular by far, giving new life to Equestria in small, enjoyable bites. Ponies flocked to them by the droves whenever they could, but always there was one game that outclassed the rest.
The ‘Goose Game’ that Debug had discovered was widely popular for participants and spectators, and had she not known better, she would have though the goose, now many geese, had won some sort of victory. Honks filled the skies at all hours, and while most of the time, the sound was enjoyable as ponies experienced new levels of happiness, occasionally, in the dark hours of the night, Celestia found the sound mildly…
Annoying.
*****
The Goose flapped his wings and let out a long honk to the sky, braying his satisfaction at another bell claimed. His plan had worked, his goal successful yet again.
Of course, they didn’t know he was anything more than a game. As long as the white pony stayed assured of such, his victory was complete, his mischief contained, yes, but always present. The ponies always came back, always wanted more time terrorizing the simulacrums the white pony had created.
The Goose was happy for it, was happier with each honk, each flap, and each taken bell. He had been developed in secret to combat the white pony, and now that he was in Equestria, he could. It would be a long war, he was weaker, and slower by far, but that was his way. He did not seek to become some conquering force, did not seek to turn ponykind into goosekind. No, instead, he sought to slowly, but ever so steadily drive the white pony to annoyance, for no other reason than to show that he could.
It was a beautiful, perfect and pristine afterlife, and he was The most horrible little Goose.
His work never ended.