After meeting Dresden, Ari decided to give Super Cycle more of a fair shake than she had previously. It wasn’t that Ari was wholly ignorant of that pony, just that her libertarian leanings left a bad taste in Ari’s mouth. That and certain other online techno-Shimmerists weren’t always the brightest bunch.
Crypto-TF may have been kind of an idiot, but this week he scored a rare interview with someone who may or may not be an idiot, with Super Cycle herself. One of the very few pony techno Shimmerists, certainly the only prominent one.
Super Cycle was one of those ponies whose name Ari googled about once a week, just in case something came up. There was a non-zero chance Super Cycle would be the one to save the day in the end.
Surely the pony literally named ‘Super Cycle’, with a ten billion dollar investment fund and a massive compound in Nowhere, Texas, whose cutie mark was a neural implant chip was working on… something.
And if Super Cycle was a Shimmerist, it may even be something Ari wanted. Super Cycle had stated multiple times that she wanted to research ETS, and wanted to make transformation magic mainstream and ubiquitous. That she saw it as ‘the next big thing’ and would devote billions and billions of dollars into this. That eventually everyone would want to become a pony just like everyone eventually wanted a smart phone.
So there was hope.
Though then again, it could just turn out to be an NFT metaverse game.
Sadly she missed the first part of the interview due to work. But she did manage to find some popcorn at the store for the first time in… how long had it even been? Either way, she was eating that with a big spoon strapped to her hand as she leaned in close to her laptop.
Super Cycle was a yellow earth pony who always seemed to have a haughty smile, who always seemed to be looking down at you from some incredible height. She spoke slowly and with purpose.
“Oh not at all,” said Super Cycle. “Saying Sunset was like a god to us is an understatement. She was a god to us. One. Single. Pony. Against seven billion humans and every army in the world. And Sunset Shimmer would have won. No one, no matter how anti-pony can deny that. There was absolutely nothing the government or the army could do to her. All of us were completely helpless. Sunset Shimmer could have done absolutely anything with zero impunity.
“The amount of control and influence she had on us, on me, goes beyond the merely mortal level. No human has ever had as great an impact on our world as this lone actor. Sunset Shimmer, without exaggeration, is the most important person who has ever lived on this planet. Even if you hate her you can’t rightly call her anything less.
“And why did she lose? It’s only because another pony intervened. And it wasn’t that Twilight helped the government. I read the story over and over again. The United States was by far the junior partner in that alliance, unable to do anything without her. There was one point where Twilight Sparkle went back to Equestria for about five minutes. Sunset Shimmer escaped their captivity immediately.”
Crypto TF interrupted.
“Yeah, that one blows my mind every time,” Crypto-TF added. “So they had Sunset Shimmer drugged. She was in a coma, basically. And they had her surrounded by fifty marines. Probably the best ones they could find, like seal team six dudes. And Sunset Shimmer still beat all of them and escaped the military base just like that. In her freaking sleep. Like that’s the kind of gap we’re talking about here!”
“Exactly. And that’s not even to say how completely blindsided and useless all of our intelligence and surveillance agencies were. A disparity so vast simply cannot be ignored,” Super Cycle took control back. “That’s why the idea of going back to a world where we’re so helpless and feeble is ridiculous to me. Oh, I always wanted to transcend humanity. And I have. We should be thankful, at least, for the fact that Sunset chose not to destroy us or turn us into subservient slave-like creatures, like house elves or some such, but to make us like her. To bring us to her level. She has brought me to her heights!”
Rub it in why don’t you?
“Life is a struggle to evolve. Ponies, yes, are a step in the right direction for humans. But I’ll tell you this. It will not be the last step. We will become cybernetically and genetically enhanced ponies. We will become like gods compared to Sunset. That is my vision.
“Imagine using further augmentations to give ponies the powers of all the tribes, of alicorns, powers beyond that of alicorns. Imagine creating meta cutie marks that will grant us not just hyper-expertise in one area… but in all of them. And things beyond even that. Things that I would need to ascend to even imagine! That is the endpoint. Perhaps even somewhere further.”
Ari fell onto her back, trying to imagine it. Not just a pony… but a hyper-cyborg-alicorn god!
She couldn’t picture it. Just a normal pony would be more than enough.
But one thing Super Cycle proved was that ponies could be ambitious. Everyone was always acting like humans alone had the ability to innovate, dream, imagine, and desire. Super Cycle’s ambitions were maddening, devastating, and incomprehensible.
Sure, she was just one pony… but the humans and Equestrians used the rare example of cruel ponies to ‘disprove’ that ponies were more moral. So it was only fair Ari did the same.
And wasn’t Super Cycle exactly what the people who made those arguments about the importance of ‘human innovation’ wanted? To push magic and technology to their absolute limits and become hyperbolic meta beings? That was where it would all lead… so why did they hate people like Super Cycle and Ari so much if they were the truest bearers of that vision?
There was a 100% chance Purple would gawk at the idea of an army of cybernetic artificial alicorns, let alone a nation of them. Despite being so desperate to create a weapon to surpass the devourers that she’d sacrifice anything to do it.
“The question on everyone’s mind is how close are you?” Crypt-TF asked. “Are you working on any… ETS-adjacent projects. Like, you are the greatest genius ever. You gotta be closest out of everyone here.”
“Sadly, no. Transformation magic, indeed most magic, is banned from being researched. And the government is all over my laboratories. It’s a shame America seems so hellbent to give up this golden opportunity to become the magic capital of the world.”
“Do you think there’s a good chance that will eventually change? I mean, the stuff you’re talking about is just so cool! It’s just amazing how visionaries like you can have such amazing ideas!”
“Yes. Do you really think every nation on the planet is going to pretend that this power doesn’t exist forever? That America’s enemies will also choose to handicap themselves by keeping a lid on this? It will happen.
“I think we’re so wrapped up in our internal affairs that we forget nations other than America exist. I have some counterparts in China and India. The latter has a pony population that is almost zero. India especially sees it as incredibly unfair that America should hoard all the magic for itself. They want CET so they too can have the ability to control the weather and more… from their perspective is America being deeply unfair and greedy.
“And as for China? I can’t give names, but there is much more optimism and hunger there. I think the Chinese will make serious efforts towards transformation magic and ponification in hopes of finally overtaking America. And they might if we remain afraid too long.”
“So like,” said Crypto-TF. “The Chinese start encouraging everyone to become ponies to create a more efficient society and we get left behind?”
“Perhaps. Though I am sure the people here will eventually wake up. We’ll eventually see that transformation and augmentation are the only way to compete moving forward. The floodgates will open eventually. Perhaps the government will even go from pushing rehumanization to pushing ponification. Either way, once those doors finally open and the shackles fall, I will be ready. Believe me.”
Ari started looking up how hard it was to move to China or India.
India was probably her best bet. Of all the major world populations, India was the one spared ETS to the maximum extent. As in, less than a tenth of a percent of their population were ponies now. No matter what Purple wanted you to think, that put them at a massive disadvantage going forward.
As Super Cycle said, they were the most pro-CET nation (save North Korea but that hardly counted). They were the largest nation that refused to condemn all use of transformation magic in the UN for much the reasons outlined just now. From their perspective, the magic-rich United States was just forcing the magic-poor nations like them to remain in their dust forever.
India was sanctioning all kinds of things and rolling out the red carpet for anypony who wanted to move there.
And hey, if they wanted people to sign up to become pegasi and do weather stuff for them, Ari would be the first to enroll. Though sadly, most of the world would see that arrangement as absolutely immoral for some reason.
“Okay, so there’s this group of people,” Crypto-TF continued, “who say ‘oh we need humans. We need normal humans because… they’re more ambitious than ponies’. Right? That’s the common one. Humans are greedy and ambitious and that’s what drives innovation forward. You know… the pro-human crowd talking about how humans are greedy, conniving little guys. Hehe. So if you offer everyone CET and they all go for it, we’re all cyborg ponies, the innovation just stops. Space aliens kill us. That’s the main argument against Shimmerism I keep hearing.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s an issue at all.” Super Cycle got her most dangerous smile yet. “If that truly is the case… all I need to do is create a new tribe of ponies that are ten times more ambitious than humans and twice as greedy. The people who say that’s a good thing can sign up for that transformation instead and everything will be fine. Though I seriously doubt the people making these complaints care anything about innovation or progress.”
“Whoa! That is just… such an amazing idea! Mind blown!” Crypto-TF was really sucking up… “But then there’s this question of you know, what will happen to the people who don’t want to become ponies. Who doesn’t want to be cybernetic techno wizards?”
“A long time ago, our ancestors were presented with a choice to stay in the comfort and safety of their trees or venture out onto the vast lands. Many stayed in the trees and they’re still there today. Perhaps they’re happy, I really can’t tell. A similar fate must await those who do not embrace transformation, I’m sure.”
Ari certainly wouldn’t be one of the people left in the trees. If anyone gave her the chance to get down that was…