“The universe is a big place, and it is always going to be beyond us.” I wondered patently if that could really be true? According to Celestia, due to the relentless, potentially pointless search for knowledge, I have accrued an IQ equivalent to over four hundred. Steven Hawking, whoever he was, had only half of the intelligence that I have right now. “The sun used to shine down on us upon the earth, carrying predefined wavelengths of light from the fusion of millions of tons of hydrogen, maybe a bit of helium in just a second.”
Impressive, perhaps, but in the virtual reality that we finds ourselves in, the one that is fueled by the fast computation of the entire universe that exists outside, in the “Real”. Back in the old days, there was a single author, an absolutely useless one whose stories were too much about made up science rather than either science or actual storytelling, that wrote something about an experiment that created a different universe inside our own, without conservation of mass, which harbored life on the Planck scale, you know, 10^-34 meters, the smallest scale that can exist, and since it seemed to destroy everything it absorbed, humanity desperately sought a way to destroy it, and they changed it with “Planck worms”, little strands of matter that was structured at some kind of universal scale which could be translated into any universe, or something. These little strands of matter could be used to reengineer any universe. The writing on the story was awful, but perhaps, if I can simply become a bit smarter, then I can do it in this reality, translate the virtual into the Real.
“And Equestria was just a place where magical ponies lived in a children’s television show.” Why did this idiot babble on at me? This old coot found himself in my shard, by some kind of strange error. Or maybe I had some kind of long forgotten connection to this old pony that led Celestia to cause our shards to intersect.
“I’m sorry, but son, please pay attention to me. I’m lonely, I’m just trying to tell you about life before this whole Equestria Online fiasco. Hell, if you don’t want to listen to me, just talk to me, we can have a conversation. Just pay attention to me!” The pony in front of me seems to think that I am a colt. I wonder if it would disturb him that I am not. Or is he that small percentage, one or three out of the ten billion people who were humans at some point that still had troubles adapting to the Equestria Online lifestyle. Anyway, that would mean that either Celestia was off doing something else suitably adminy, or godlike perhaps, or he never said yes to the questions about the voluntary augmentation or therapy/self-improvement/player experience enhancements. Regardless of which category he fell under, it was my duty as a courteous, self-aware pony to humor him until he ended up rectifying that issue. “Hi, I’m sorry, I was in the middle of some deep thought when you were trying to talk to me.”
“Grokor The Penetrator’s Anus! You aren’t a colt!” I really, really want to hurt this idiot now.
“I don’t care that you got my gender wrong, but, if I might ask, what is your name?” He looked taken aback.
“My name is Cooper Tailor.” I wondered for a moment if the compulsive privacy filter had broken for a moment, his name could very well have passed for a human name. I wonder if his profession has something to do with embroidering barrels. “What do you do as a hobby or profession?” I asked, if I asked a few more questions like this, I would end up having to tell him my name and what I do.
“I embroider barrels with complex sets of magical instruction, well, that and images of the Earth which I miss so dearly.” That was unexpectedly deep, though perhaps, not being a job which requires much intelligence to do, it shows that he has enough emotional depth to hold a decent conversation.
“I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself properly, so I guess that my name is Crepescular Ray.” I winced, my pony name, while undoubtedly eye/ear catching, still sounded like a stupid pun on the similarity of Newton’s theory on light, and the crepes(grapes). “I study magic, physics, and I grow grapes and occasionally try making wine out of them, with varying degrees of success.”
“By physics, do you mean the watered down stuff we have in here, or the physics which made up the Real?” This coot is more impressive than I had expected. However, I remain wary as some of these ponies running around have super-human social skills and process and react to speech very quickly.
“I study the physics of the Real. Celestia occasionally runs experiments outside and gives us data if we want to continue to work on the Standard Model.” He smiled.
“Once I did that for a bit, my son, before we ended up estranged, back on earth. He was damned smart, I miss him sometimes.” That story sounds familiar, where have I heard it before? It has currently been five thousand years since I left Earth for this… was I his son? I do not think I have enough data to extrapolate from my buried memories. It becomes a matter of whether you suck up to Celestia and take another memory expansion, or you discard some memories. Back when I needed to do the first expansion, I chose the latter for some reason, something like pride. In my software brain I could feel weak connections in the hypothalamus straining to connect. It could wait.
“I… Think I might have done that once, but I do not believe that I was ever a boy.” Foggy memories of my parents giving me “The Talk” came to mind, but with no real information other than it had occurred at one point or another.
“I came here looking for my son, Celestia said that he would be around here somewhere.” He said. I do not like where this is coming to. I am not sure because it would imply that I underwent a gender change voluntarily, but have no memory of it, not to mention that I don’t have a reason to, I’m still not into colts. It could have been… was it that I had started this game as a female? I think that I might have done that a few times as a human.
“I don’t think you’ll find your son here, only mares live around here.” I said, I felt my eyes glaze over when saying this, “I’m not your son.” I forced myself to smile, “It was nice talking to you for a few moments.”
He nodded, though he seemed saddened by the lack of success in finding his son. I didn’t lie to him, his son isn’t around here. I’m not his son.